Chapter 1
I Wasn't Allowed
I learned one thing very early in life:
Some children were told, "No." Others were asked, "Why not?"
I was always in the first group.
I was only two years old when my mother left us.
Of course, I was too young to understand what that meant. I was just a child. I didn't even understand how much a mother could mean.
I had two brothers.
My older brother was seven, and my younger brother was three. There was only eleven months between my younger brother and me.
But when I was born, my younger brother was taken to live with my aunt. As we grew up, he remained my brother bv hlood, but he grew up in another home.
He called my aunt Mama.
And I had my Gülay Mama.
I called her Mama too.
Because when you are a child, you don't understand blood or family names.
You understand who holds you when you cry.
After my mother left, Gülay Mama took care of me. I grew up beside her.
My father eventually married another woman.
I was very young. The memories I have from those days are like pieces of a broken photograph. Sometimes I remember a room. Sometimes a face. Sometimes the sound of a conversation I was too young to understand.
But there is one thing I remember clearly.
Everything changed after my sister was born.
I didn't know what to call it back then.
I didn't know the word favoritism.
I didn't know the word injustice either.
I just felt it.
When my sister cried, everyone came running.
When I cried, I was often told,
"Be quiet."
When my sister misbehaved, she was just being a child.
When I did the same thing, I was punished.
Back then, I didn't know that the things children remember most aren't the toys they were given.
They remember the way people looked at them.
And years later, I would realize that the things that hurt me most weren't the punishments, the restrictions, the clothes I didn't get, or the places I wasn't allowed to go.
The thing that hurt the most was one question that followed me throughout my childhood:
"Why was she allowed to, when I wasn't?"
