My Earliest Memory

I can remember being yelled at by a teacher for not doing my homework, but I can’t remember what she taught. I can remember my first trip to the hospital, but not the first time I hurt myself. I can remember the meal I had on my first date last year, but I can’t remember what mommy made for dinner two days ago.

I’ve read that the emotions experienced within an event are what make it memorable, what make it stand out against all the other events and thoughts and stimuli our brains have to process every day.

Shame and fear were there when my teacher yelled at me. Pain and fear were there when doctors surrounded me. Excitement and fear were there when the first boy I ever liked kissed me.

Fear was all there was in my earliest childhood memory.

I don’t remember how that day started or the drive there or my parents’ names, my memory starts at the middle – at the middle of a parking lot, at the middle of so many people, so many colors, so much noise.

I remember not wanting to be there. Perhaps I had a bad feeling about that day, perhaps my childhood innocence was granted a moment of divine premonition, perhaps I was psychic and knew what was going to happen but was too young to put it into words or actions, or perhaps I was just a kid at a strange place for the first time and reacting to it as any other kid at a strange place for the first time would have.

I remember my mommy tickling me out of my discomfort until I giggled, and my daddy hoisting me up onto his shoulders and running ahead as I continued to giggle. And then later, I remember walking, carefully stepping over the ground, worried about dirtying my new white shoes because mommy had told me that I shouldn’t wear them to the fair but I cried and cried until she let me and I wanted to keep them clean so she would always let me.

Both mommy and daddy held my hands as we walked straight into the people, there were too many people. Daddy let go of my hand when I said I was hungry and went to get us food. I was getting tired from standing and motioned for mommy to pick me up, but a pretty lady bumped into her and they started talking, and mommy always told me not to interrupted her when she was talking to other grownups.

Suddenly, there was a balloon, a white one, just like my new shoes, so close to my face. I looked up at mommy, but she was still talking to the pretty lady. I reached out for it with my free hand and I could almost reach it, I just needed a little nudge, so I let go of mommy’s hand, but stayed so close to her. Just as I was about to grab the balloon, it flew away, but not too far, I could still get it without getting yelled at. I counted two steps and almost grabbed it, but it jumped farther away again, but still close. I reached for it, and reached for it, and reached for it, and finally caught it.

I giggled and turned around, wanting to sneak back to mommy’s side without her noticing, but she wasn’t there.

“Mommy!” I tried to yell for her, but even I could hardly hear my own voice, there was so much noise. “Mommy! Mommy!” I yelled and yelled, turning around and screaming in each direction in case she was there, but she wasn’t.

I don’t remember feeling my heart beat before that day, I don’t remember crying so hard before that day, I don’t remember being without my mommy or daddy before that day, I don’t remember being so scared before that day.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” A woman stopped in front of me, and I blinked the tears to find the pretty woman who’d been talking to mommy.

“I want my mommy.” I wailed at her.

“Okay, don’t be scared, I’ll help you find your mommy.” She grabbed my hand, and I let her lead me ahead, still crying, a part of me hoping that if mommy saw me crying, she wouldn’t be angry. “Is this your mommy?” She pointed to a woman who was standing alone.

“No,” I sniffed. “You know my mommy.” I sobbed. “You were talking to her.”

“I don’t think so, sweetie.” She shook her head.

“I want my mommy!” I cried harder and people began to stare again.

“No, don’t cry.” She quickly wiped my tears with her fingers. “If you cry, we won’t find her.” I instantly stopped. “You have to be a good girl, okay?”

“Aha,” I sniffed as I nodded.

“Hey,” a tall man appeared beside the woman.

“Hey,” she kissed him. “This sweet little girl is lost.” She informed him while smiling softly at me. “We need to help her find her mommy and daddy.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he smiled at me, too. “I’m sure they’re also looking for you. Let’s go find them.”

We walked and walked, but we couldn’t find mommy or daddy.

“You poor thing, you must be so tired.” The woman cooed as she picked me up, and I started crying again.

“No, no, don’t cry. Here,” the man pulled candy out of his pocket. “Eat this and make a wish, and we’ll find mommy and daddy.” He assured me.

I chewed the candy along with my tears and snot, but I couldn’t find them, and I was so, so tired that I fell asleep. I woke up later and found myself at a strange house and instantly started crying, but the pretty woman and man told me not to worry, that they called the police to find mommy and daddy and that they would take care of me only until mommy and daddy came to pick me up.

“We’ll just play all day long!” The woman clapped, and that didn’t sound too bad.

She changed my clothes because mine had gotten dirty and we didn’t want mommy to get mad at me for that when she came. Then, she asked what I thought about her hair, and I told her that it was so pretty and sparkly.

“Do you want yours to be like this, too?” She asked, and I nodded enthusiastically, effectively distracted until my hair was the same color and style as hers.

“How did you do that?” I gasped when I saw my reflection in the mirror.

“I’m a fairy.” She beamed, and I was so young that I full heartedly believed her and no longer feared her or wanted to be parted from her.

Days passed by, and mommy and daddy didn’t come, but the man and woman took me outside and played with me every day and let me have chocolate every day and brought me so many toys until I started calling them mommy and daddy, too.

It was when I got older that I was informed that my real parents never filed a missing report and that they had probably taken me to the fair with the intention of getting rid of me.

Learning that didn’t hurt too much, I’d stopped waiting for them to come get me a while back, and my new mommy and daddy were way better; they pampered me with the newest dolls, they let me keep my new hair color, and they allowed me to be homeschooled when I said I didn’t want to go to school, which meant that we could move whenever we got bored with our neighborhood and go on new adventures.

But that was until daddy died.

Mommy and I moved again. We always had to move because of daddy’s job, but this time I think we moved because mommy couldn’t handle all his memories at our house. We moved into a new house, and it was the first time we moved without him and she broke down crying as soon as we unlocked the front door. She looked just as lost as I’d felt the day she found me, and I wanted to help her the way she’d helped me, but I didn’t know what to do.

Mommy said she just wanted to sleep and that she would unpack the following day, so she took a couple of sleeping pills and we cuddled until she fell asleep, but I couldn’t sleep.

It was a new house that felt too big without daddy filling it, so I decided to try to fill it with our stuff in hopes of crowding us with distractions.

I went to the box with daddy’s name on it because I knew that it would be the hardest for mommy to go through and cut it open.

I pulled out some of his shirts that mommy insisted on keeping, and they smelled just like him that my tears instantly poured out, but I kept going, knowing that it would be even harder for mommy to have to do it. There were several pictures of him, but I pulled them out without looking at them because it was so hard to know that they were the only way for me to see the man who saved my life and took me in and loved me as his own all those years when he never had to.

Then, at the bottom of the box, I found a small file with a girl’s name on it. Curiosity got the best of me, and I opened it to find several folded pieces of paper inside. The same name was on a blank paper, but I turned it around and found it to be a photo of a small girl, of myself, with the hair color that mommy only let show in my roots framing her whole face.

There were several similar photos of myself from before mommy and daddy had even met me. In some of the pictures, I was with my real mommy and daddy. I’d forgotten what they’d looked like until I held their pictures in my hand, and they looked so familiar.

My heart picked up speed, searing every detail into my memory. My hands shook as my stiffened fingers struggled to pull everything out of the file.

I found ripped pages of newspapers, all carrying the picture of my face with a different hair color and a strange name at the top, reporting a little girl kidnapped and her devastated parents searching the country for her, for me, detailing what I looked like, particularly my hair color and hair length and the clothes I’d been wearing on the day I’d gotten lost, all things that were changed within hours of my getting lost without them ever knowing.

There were too many articles, dating back to that fair I’d gotten lost, at all the way to just a few months ago. There were different headlines, some suspecting that I’d been killed, some showing pictures of dead little girls but none whose DNA matched that of my real parents, preserving their hope. All the articles stated that my parents hadn’t given up on finding me and were still looking for me.

I heard someone call me from behind with the name I’d always thought was mine, but all the papers on the floor before me objected to.

“What are you doing?” I turned around and found my mommy, my kidnapper, rubbing her eyes tiredly as she walked closer to me.