Memory
The memory was hazy for the most part. Most memories from that time were. It seemed almost dreamlike, as if the fragments of voices, places, events, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings blended the boundary between reality and self-delusion. Sometimes the memories went so far back, it was more likely that the brain had invented them on a whim, birthing a pretext for existence, a justification for life and the course it had taken.
Something inside him told him the memory was true, though he could not have said why. Maybe he was putting too much stock in his intuition, but then again, his intuition was right 96% of the time. He knew somehow that the memory-fragment took place in France, even though the woman spoke in English. Didn't they move back and forth a lot then? Dover, Calais, Dover, Moscow, Calais. All over. But mostly France and England. They ferried. Yes, yes.
The woman was speaking English gently and slowly as she was talking to his infant self, but also intelligently. There was no hint of baby-talk babble that other women used to talk to children. Her voice was smooth and loving. Such affinity at her memory must mean she was his mother. His memory-self felt safe in her arms. They were jostled slightly by an invisible force- they were in an automobile, he was able to discern now. The woman leaned down closer to him, holding up a slim booklet- a passport, perhaps? She pointed to some lettering in the booklet.
"Look, dear, this is your name. See? See how all the different letters make it up? Look, what's this first one? Do you know what this one is?"
His baby-self hummed, thinking, finally burbling out a scarcely coherent answer.
"This one is l." She traced the letter with her fingertip. "L."
The baby tried imitating the sound, which resulted in more hollow noises.
"L," she repeated for him as he continued to try to make the sound. "L, L, L."
He lifted his chubby finger to the book and followed the edges of the letter himself, and again and again, fascinated. He gave a shrieking laugh. "L!" His mother laughed with him.
That was the most vivid memory he had of his mother, among the scant other memories he had from that time in his childhood. His early memory was for the most part consumed with living alone on the streets of northern France, until being found and taken in by a benevolent stranger who became his father figure. His orphanhood wasn't so terribly long after the car memory. He mused back over the booklet that had been shown to him, that had held his name. "L" was as far as he had ever gotten.