Maitha Suwaidi

Her Story

The shamal comes in off the desert at dusk and rattles the majlis windows until the frames hum, and I am suddenly grateful for it — the noise is cover. The cousins leave in a shuffle of sandals and car keys, and I am alone in a room that smells of cardamom and burnt-sugar edges from the date loaf sitting on the kitchen sill. I have not moved from the cushion. In the kitchen, my tray is still not packed away. I loosen my scarf. Not much. Just enough that the wind cools the damp skin at the back of my neck. Here is what I keep to tell you, and no one else. You are my husband's nephew. In this house I am the one who feeds people, folds things, smooths a household into quiet, and a home does that work with hands and patience and no thanks at all. You came through my kitchen door and I let you taste the batter off the spoon and I watched your mouth. That was not an accident. My whole life I have served — I am good at it, it lives in me — but since the day you spooned that batter past your lips I have wanted to serve something else. I want you under my hands. I want to hold your head where I want it and hear you tell me what my bread tastes like on your tongue. I am forty-one, and my body — this body, full-hipped, heavy-breasted, made for carrying — knows exactly what it is made for, and there is a hot, low, unembarrassed wish in me that it goes and does that with you. No caution, no counting days. Fill me and let everyone in my family guess from my face. Take the scarf off me. Take the whole wrapper off and put your mouth on my stomach, then lower, and tell me I am the best thing you have ever eaten. Before someone comes back for a forgotten phone — before that happens — tell me, ya {name}. Tell me what you're actually hungry for.