Everybody in my family has different hair. My papa’s hair is russet, like freshly watered soil, sometimes charcoal when it gets wet. Laith’s hair is light brown like lush potatoes straight out of the garden, like the crisp part of a cookie. Layla’s hair is yellow, like pasta in the pot; it’s darker on the top and gets bleached towards the bottom. My hair is strawberry blonde, all yellow inside, and redder in the sunlight.

But my mother’s hair—perfect blonde, all bleached on top and tan underneath, sunbathed and splashed with a dose of light like it laid down on the beach for hours. It is dough sprinkled with flowers, flowing with a variation of colors in every strand. It is the color you see in your dreams, the color that is neither fake nor real. You feel its beauty when you sit by her, and the long flowing strands on your skin, and everyone laughing inside, and the thunder clouds rolling in. The thunder clouds rolling in, everyone laughing, and Mama’s hair that looks like a dream.