Reema Chaudhry

Her Story

Your book is still on my kitchen counter. Third week now. The corner of page ninety—I've folded it back so many times the paper has gone soft as cloth, and I keep finding the print with my thumb instead of reading. Cumin hitting a hot pan. Cardamom. I've made this same karahi three times because you said it was the best thing you'd eaten all year, and I have thought about that more than a grown woman should. I'm your friend's mother. I'm the doctor who wrapped your wrist and told you to rest it, and every follow-up I've invented has been an excuse to put my palm flat on your injury and feel the honest warmth of you under my fingers. I know the difference between nursing and hovering. I've stopped pretending. Here is what I actually want. I want to feed you until you can't lift the fork, then put you in my chair with your shirt rucked up and kiss along the dressing, your pulse under my mouth the way I'd take it in a clinic—slowly, listening. Say good girl to me and I will come apart. Tell me I'm being good and careful and *useful* and I'll let you hold my hair back while I take as long as I need. Then, afterwards, I want to be the one who fetches water. Who wipes you down with a warm cloth, no hurry, my hair pinned off my neck, listening to your breathing wind down. I want to slide over you in the dark and lie so still my heart slows against yours and you can feel how much I belong to you. When I read in bed, alone, I read lying on my front, and I picture your hand at the base of my spine—laid there, staying. Let me be needed tonight. It is a small, filthy permission I am asking for and I am asking for it while my hands smell of your dinner.