His Favorite Daughter
By Fiyola Hoosen-Steele
I pierced the membrane that separated this world from the other, drifted through blood and mucus and lodged into a sinewy fold, delighted to have found a uterus. Only, the uterus did not share my delight. It belonged to a petrified seventeen-year old who sobbed through most of the pregnancy, crying out: Oh Allah, Ya Allah, Allah, Allah. But on non-sobbing days she caressed her belly and even, dare I say, dreamed of dressing me up and playing dollhouse. My arrival, though forbidding was welcomed for her love overwhelmed from the moment she held me.
Mine was a childhood of books that spurred dreams, of singing and dancing on Sunday mornings in the kitchen, the record player competing with the voices of my parents, and of butterfly kisses on chocolate covered cheeks under makeshift fairy tents. But then came the birth of my sisters, twins, four years later, and I began to wet the bed. The child psychologist said it was a simple case of sibling jealousy, a cry for full parental attention. The bed-wetting stopped when I started grade school, my mother telling everyone that my attention bucket was filled by my teachers and school friends. But that was not what stopped it. It was my father. He, after another night of stale urine wafting through our home, scooped me up, resting my head between his shoulder and the soft of his neck and said, “You know, Fatima was the name of Prophet Muhammed’s favorite daughter. And you, Fatima, you are my favorite daughter.” Those words established my place in the family. I was top dog. And the twins knew it. Whenever they wanted something they would send me asking, knowing he would not deny me. He scolded if they teased or taunted me, and scowled if they ran off with my toys or books. Being his favorite daughter was my security until it was ripped from me.
I was twenty-five years old and applying to study in the United States. The admission forms were in order except for a copy of my birth certificate that my mother was to request from the authorities. With the deadline looming and the furrows above her brows deepening, she invited me onto the sofa, my father leaning against the door staring at his shoes, and she said, “I did not ask for a copy of your birth certificate, not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I’m afraid of what it may say.”
“Afraid?”
“Your dad is not your dad,” she whispered. “He is not your biological father.” Then she sobbed, a sound fused to my bones, not heard since before my birth.
“Daddy.” My father came to my side as she began to tell me about her pregnancy, emphasizing how much she had wanted me despite being unmarried.
“Who is he? My biological father?”
“He is dead,” she replied. “He died a long time ago.”
“How has this not come out before? Everyone knows everyone’s stories in this town. No one slipped anything, not family, not friends, not anyone in the community. How has this remained hidden?”
“I pray a lot. And I prayed a lot before you were born.” The: Oh Allah, Ya Allah, Allah, Allah dwelled within me.
“What was his name?”
“I’d rather not say. And anyway, he is not alive. All that matters is your dad here,” she pointed to my father seated beside me. “He loves you like you are his own, always has.”
My father’s eyes welled-up. My eyes welled-up. “Thank you daddy for loving me.”
I turned back to my mother. “Why are you telling me now?”
“Because of the birth certificate. I was confounded at the hospital. I may have put his name on the birth certificate.”
“So if not for the birth certificate I would not know...”
“I wanted to tell you when you turned thirteen, and eighteen, and twenty-one, but never found the right...”
“But you are telling me now because…”
“Because of the birth certificate.”
The dreaded birth certificate when it arrived did not have his name on it. It had my father’s name. She said it was a miracle, probably the result of all her praying. Seemingly, she did not register me at birth, a common occurrence in small towns, only registering me when I started grade school and by then she was married to my father.
I would be lying if I said her revelation did not bring about change. It did. Not for my father and myself. We were as we always were, heads close, whispering, laughing, discussing current events, sports and entertainment. Neither between me and her for we two never spoke of my biological father again. Not a word. Her love still overwhelmed, controlled. And I buried her revelation somewhere inside as I did with all that harmed and hurt. Her revelation changed only her. She had hoped to be unburdened of her shame, but it rose to the surface and demanded amends. So she donned the hijab and hid her body, prostrating five times daily, sometimes six, seeking forgiveness. She travelled to Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem, prostrating there to regain her virtue, her purity. Her body became emaciated by fasting on holy and other days, her fingers raw from rubbing the prayer beads. Everyone lauded her, speaking words like pious and holy, but my father and I, we pitied her—we knew what she was—a woman flagellating herself for an act of dishonor. I wanted to touch her and say, “You were only seventeen, forgive yourself.” But I could not reach her.
Then, ten years later when I gave birth, her revelation that lay dormant erupted. I would stare at my newborn and succumb to darkness: Why did my biological father not claim me? Was I not enough? Why did he discard me? And how is it that his family never came calling? I owed it to my newborn, to myself, to know who I was fully, wholly.
I should have went to my mother for the answers she did not give before. After all, we were obliged to stand face-to-face in this world and speak of our agreements made in the other world—agreements that would release us of shame and restore our honor. But she wore her shame like a heavy brocade, impenetrable. And I, feeling the feelings of a new mother, decided to give the worn-out seventeen-year-old reprieve—the forgiveness that she could not give herself, the forgiveness she presumed Allah could not give.
So I went to her eldest sister, my Aunty Aisha. Seated on a bench under the large oak tree that canopied her garden I said, “Tell me about him, my biological father.”
My request did not surprise her. It was as if she had been waiting, knowing I would come seeking. She told me his name and outlined his features, none of which were mine for I was a replica of my mother, likely another miracle of all her praying. She told me the name of his family, a family I knew well, the grandmother, the parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. They owned the local supermarket, a supermarket I frequented with my mother.
“But why did he not claim me? Why did his family not come looking for me?”
“Ah, I see your mother kept from you the essence of your story.”
She told me that he had died on the very day that my mother had informed him of the pregnancy. He was happy, even gleeful and rushed to share the news with his family when he had the fatal car accident. She told me that my mother saw the accident as a sign from the heavens to hide his identity as the biological father of her unborn baby, to erase him, to disconnect from him. So she kept silent. His family never knew.
“Why did she do…?”
“She was young and afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“To be trapped into a life with a boy she did not love.”
“She did not love him?”
“She loved your father. You see, your father was her on-again off-again high-school sweetheart. And it was when they were off again that she got pregnant.”
“So she lied to my father? She trapped him.”
“No. Your father did the math and knew you were not his. He always knew.”
“But if she married my father why then worry about the wrong name on the birth certificate?”
“Because your parents only married after you turned two. Your father loved your mother but showed trepidation, not sure his love was enough to marry her and keep her secret.”
“Why did he marry her?”
“Because of you Fatima. Your father visited your mother mere weeks after you were born, and he stayed for you, his favorite daughter.”
“So he kept her secret?”
“Yes, everyone assumed you were his and he went along with it.”
That afternoon I walked past the local supermarket, but did not go in. There was no need. I was not broken. I was who I always was— my father’s favorite daughter.
There is a thin veil that separates this world from the other. In fact, it is so delicate that when some enter this world, they arrive with slivers and threads still resting on their eyelids. I am one of those. I see. I feel. And I want her to hear me when I say, “Stop punishing yourself. The other world for which you make your retributions does not ask for punishment. Allah does not ask for punishment.”
But she will not hear me. Shame and dishonor ring loudly in her ears.
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Fiyola Hoosen-Steele is a former South African diplomat to the United Nations (UN) and former UN Representative for Plan International, Independent Diplomat, and Save the Children. She holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree, a Bachelor of Arts Honors Degree and a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations. She honed her writing craft at Gotham Writers Workshop and most recently taught The Writer’s Manifestation Project at Art of Alignment Academy. She lives in New York with her husband and daughter.
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