Wes Moore: Nicki and I would play this game. I would sit on the living room chair while Nicki deeply inhaled and then blew directly in my face, eliciting hysterical laughs on both sides. This was our ritual. It always ended with me jabbing playfully at her face. She'd run away and bait me to give chase. Most times before today I never came close to catching her. But today I caught her and realized like a dog chasing a car, I had no idea what to do. So in the spirit of three year old boys everywhere who've run out of better ideas. I decided to punch her. Of course my mother walked into the room, right as I swung and connected. The yell startled me, but her eyes are what I remember. "Get up to your damn room," came my mother's command from the doorway. "I told you don't you ever put your hands on a woman."

I looked up, confused as she quickly closed the distance between us. My mother had what we called Thomas hands, a tag derived from her maiden name. Hands that hit so hard you had to be hit only once to know that you never wanted to be hit again. The nickname began generations ago, but each generation took on the mantle of justifying it. Those hands were now reaching for me. Her eyes told me it was time to get moving. I darted up the stairs, still unsure about what I'd done so terribly wrong. I headed to the bedroom I shared with my baby sister Shawnee. Our room was tiny, barely big enough for my small bed and her crib. There was no place to hide. I was running in circles, frantic to find a way to conceal myself and still trying to comprehend why I was in so much trouble.

I couldn't even figure out the meaning of half the words my mother was using. In a panic, I kicked the door shut behind me just as her voice reached the second floor. "And don't let me hear you slam that," boom. I stared for a moment at the closed door knowing it would soon be flying open again. I sat in the middle of the room next to my sister's empty crib, awaiting my fate. Then deliverance. "Joy, you can't get on him like that." My fathers' baritone voice drifted up through the thin floor. "He's only three. He doesn't even understand what he did wrong. Do you really think he knows what a woman beater is?"

My father was in the living room, 10 feet from where the incident began. He was a very slender six foot two with a bushy mustache and a neatly shaped afro. It wasn't his style to yell. When he heard my mother's outburst, he Rose from his chair, his eyes widening in confusion. My mother slowly reeled herself in, but she wasn't completely mollified. "Wes, he needs to learn what is acceptable and what is not." My father agreed, but with a gentle laugh, reminded her that cursing at a young boy wasn't the most effective way of making a point. I was saved for the moment.

My first name, Wesley, is my father's. I have two middle names, a compromise between my parents. My father loved the sound and meaning of Watende, a Shona word that means revenge will not be sought. A concept that aligned with his gentle spirit. My mother objected. Watende sounded too big, too complicated for such a tiny baby. It wasn't until later in life that she understood why it was so important to my father that Watende be a part of me. Instead, she lobbied for Omari, which means the highest. I'm not sure what was easier or less lofty about that name, but I was well into elementary school before I became comfortable spelling either.

My parents debate continue downstairs, but their words faded. I went to the rooms only window and looked out on the world. My older sister, Nicki and I love to look through the window as families arrived at the swap market across the street. Our home was on a busy street that sat right on the border of Maryland and Washington DC, stuck confusingly between two different municipal jurisdictions of fact they will become very significant in the near future. I pulled back the thin diaphanous curtain that covered the windows, in spite of my friend, Ayanna outside with her mother. She was half Iranian and half Italian with long dark hair and warm eyes that always fascinated me. They were light green, unlike the eyes of anyone else I knew. And they twinkled as if they held stars. I wanted to tap on the window to say hello as she walked past our house to the tenant building next door, but I was afraid of making more trouble for myself. So I just smiled.