Mama learned early on that her daughter was different from her son. Mohamed threw tantrums; Soos stayed quiet if you gave her something sweet. In Arabic, a soos, a cavity, is what you get after eating too much sugar. My parents gave me the nickname when I was four. By that time, I had two gold crowns and twice as many holes in my teeth.

In my mouth now, one would struggle to find a tooth not stuffed with a filling. I was never in the habit of maintaining good oral health. We aren’t brought up that way; we don’t nur­ture what isn’t healthy. When our grass isn’t as green as we want, we concrete over it.

Mohamed was difficult from the beginning. Stuck sideways inside my mother, he didn’t want to come out…

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