Mom lives two hours outside the city, in a quaint town where kids can go on hayrides in the fall and strawberry picking in the summer. There’s a main street and a sandwich shop where people know each other by name. She moved there for the quiet nights, the deer that graze in her backyard, and the icicles that form along the eaves of her house in winter.

And it’s only a quick train ride away, which gives us both comfort.

“Mom, don’t be silly. I can’t wait for you to come. I’ve already made plans for us for that Thursday night.”

She’s coming into town for her friend’s retirement party, but it will also be Mom’s birthday. I’ve bought us tickets to see a revival of Oklahoma!, which surprised her. She’s noticed that I’ve been wading further and further away from shore lately, revisiting some moments I haven’t thought about in years. The relief in her voice makes me wonder if she’d been thinking I wasn’t okay until I volunteered to sit in a theater and watch a musical that reminds me of the night I snuck into my parents’ empty home in Kabul.

Mom has reason to worry.

When I was fourteen years old, we lived in Istanbul. Antonia had befriended a circle of English-speaking friends with a few children among them. Even though being around people my own age only made me feel more awkward, I forced myself to engage for Mom’s sake. I didn’t want her friends wondering what was wrong with her adopted daughter. So I laughed at jokes, traded bracelets, and sang happy birthday—all of which consumed massive amounts of energy.

One night I was one of four girls invited to a birthday celebration by a British girl named Katie. It was a Friday night, and we were holed up in her room listening to Nirvana. Katie and the friends she had invited over from our international school were the good girls, satisfied by a bottle of iridescent nail polish. I had mostly lost my accent by then and looked and spoke like an ordinary American girl, even if I did struggle a bit with slang.

Katie’s mom called us downstairs for homemade pizza. We came down the carpeted steps on our heels, our freshly lacquered toes flared. Katie’s father, a British businessman, was stretched out on the sofa in the adjoining room watching an old film. We each took a slice and sauntered into the living room.

The actress was dainty and blond, her hair tied back with a black ribbon. She wore an eggshell blouse with a frilly neck and buttons running the length of her back. Her long black skirt swished as she walked. She spoke with a Russian accent, which caught my ear.

What’s this movie about, Mr. Shipman? one of the girls had asked.