Eid Visit
"He returns to Lamu Island for Eid and finds his cousin—once a skinny teenager—now a voluptuous divorcée with unfinished business."
The dhow cuts through the water like a memory.
Lamu Island rises ahead, unchanged since I left fifteen years ago. The same white-washed buildings. The same narrow alleyways too small for cars. The same donkeys carrying cargo through streets built before engines existed.
I haven't been back since my parents moved us to London. University, then work, then the comfortable forgetting that comes with distance. But Bibi is ninety now, and this might be her last Eid, and the family demanded I come.
All the family.
Including Nadia.
I almost don't recognize her.
The Nadia I remember was fourteen, skinny as a reed, all sharp elbows and braces. The woman who greets me at the dock is... not that.
"Bashir?" She squints against the sun. "Bashir, is that you?"
"Nadia?"
She laughs and pulls me into a hug, and I feel every inch of what fifteen years has done to her. She's grown up—and out. Way out. Her arms are soft around my neck. Her belly presses against mine. And her breasts—ya Allah—her breasts are crushed between us, heavy and full.
"You got so tall!" She pulls back, still holding my arms. "And handsome. London has been good to you."
"You got..." I trail off. What do I say? You got thick? You got gorgeous? You got exactly like every dream I've ever had?
"Fat?" She grins, no shame in it. "Three babies will do that. Plus I inherited the family curse." She pats her belly through her kanga. "All the women on Mama's side blow up after thirty. I fought it for years. Eventually I surrendered."
"You look amazing."
"Liar." But she's smiling. "Come. Bibi is waiting. And the whole family wants to see the London cousin."
She turns, and I see her from behind—wide hips, thick thighs, an ass that strains against the bright fabric. She's easily two-thirty, maybe more.
I follow her through the winding streets, trying not to stare.
Failing completely.
Bibi's house is chaos.
Aunts, uncles, cousins I barely remember—everyone packed into the ancient coral-stone building, preparing for Eid. The air smells like pilau and henna and the jasmine that grows in the courtyard.
"Bashir!" My grandmother's voice cuts through the noise. "Come here, let me see you."
She's tiny now, shrunken with age, but her eyes are sharp as ever. She cups my face, studies me.
"Too skinny," she pronounces. "Nadia! Feed your cousin. He looks like he's starving in that cold country."
"Yes, Bibi." Nadia appears at my elbow. "Come. I'll make you chai."
The kitchen is quiet.
Everyone else is in the main house, debating politics and arranging marriages. Nadia moves around the small space like she owns it, filling a pot, grinding cardamom.
"You never wrote," she says.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"We were close, before. Remember? Those summers you used to visit?"
I remember. Nadia at ten, eleven, twelve—my constant companion on this island. Exploring the ruins. Swimming in hidden coves. Lying on rooftops, watching stars and dreaming about lives far away.
"I remember."
"I waited for letters. Emails. Something." She pours the chai, hands me a cup. "But you just... vanished."
"London was... different. I was different. I didn't know how to—"
"Stay connected to the skinny girl from Lamu?" She sits across from me, and the chair creaks under her weight. "I understand. We were children. It was a long time ago."
"It wasn't like that."
"Then what was it like?"
The truth rises before I can stop it.
"I was afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of you." I stare into my chai. "Of what I felt, even then. You were fourteen. I was sixteen. And I looked at you sometimes and thought things I shouldn't have thought about my cousin."
Silence.
"Bashir..."
"I know. It's wrong. It's haram. We're family. But I couldn't stop, so I ran." I finally look at her. "I've been running ever since."
She sets down her cup. Slowly.
"Come with me."
She leads me through alleys I half-remember, down steps carved from coral, to a small house near the water. Her house.
"The children are with their father this week," she says, unlocking the door. "Part of the divorce arrangement. He gets them for Eid. I get them the rest of the time."
"When did you—"
"Divorce? Two years ago. He found a younger wife. Skinnier." She laughs bitterly. "The curse of the fat Lamu woman. Our men love us until they don't."
"He's an idiot."
"You keep saying that about men who leave women like me."
"Because it keeps being true."
She closes the door behind us. The room is dim, cool, furnished with low cushions and faded rugs.
"You ran because of me," she says quietly.
"Yes."
"Fifteen years. Because you wanted your cousin."
"Yes."
"Do you still want her?"
I look at her. This woman who was once a girl. This voluptuous divorcée who stands in front of me like she's waiting for a verdict.
"More than ever."
She crosses the room in three steps and kisses me.
It's nothing like I imagined.
It's better.
Her mouth is hot and desperate. Her body presses against mine—all that softness, all that weight. My hands find her hips through the kanga and pull her closer.
"We shouldn't," she gasps between kisses.
"I know."
"We're cousins."
"I know."
"If anyone found out—"
"I know, Nadia." I pull back, cup her face. "Tell me to stop and I will. We'll go back to Bibi's house and pretend this never happened. I'll fly back to London and we'll never see each other again."
"Is that what you want?"
"No. But it's what I'll do if you ask."
She's quiet for a long moment. Then:
"Don't stop."
I undress her slowly.
Layer by layer, the kanga unwraps to reveal her—all of her. Three children and the family curse have made her magnificent. Heavy breasts, dark-nippled and swaying when she moves. A belly that rounds outward, soft and ample. Hips that flare wide, thighs that press together.
"I'm not the girl you remember," she whispers.
"You're better." I lower my mouth to her breast, take one nipple between my lips. She gasps. "So much better."
I worship her body like a temple. Every inch. Every curve. Every place that no one has touched since her husband left.
"Please—" She's shaking. "I need—"
"What do you need?"
"What I've been dreaming about since we were teenagers. What you've been running from."
I guide her to the cushions. Spread her thighs. Look at what's been waiting for me for fifteen years.
"Then let me stop running."
She tastes like coming home.
I eat her until she screams, until she comes twice, until she's begging for more. Then I strip, and she watches with hungry eyes, and when I finally slide inside her—
"Bashir—"
"I've got you." I bury myself to the hilt. "I'm not going anywhere."
I fuck her slowly. Thoroughly. Making up for fifteen years of absence with every stroke. Her body moves beneath me—all that softness, all that weight—and she's crying, but not from pain.
"I missed you," she sobs. "I missed you so much—"
"I'm here now." I kiss her tears away. "I'm here."
We lie tangled on the cushions.
Outside, the call to prayer echoes across the island. Eid Mubarak. Blessed celebration.
"What happens now?" she asks.
"I don't know. I live in London. You live here. We're cousins. None of this makes sense."
"It makes perfect sense to me." She props herself up, looks at me. "I've been waiting for you since I was fourteen. I didn't know I was waiting, but I was. Every man I've been with—my husband, the others—I was comparing them to a memory. To you."
"Nadia..."
"I'm not asking you to marry me. I'm not asking you to move here. I'm just asking you not to run this time." She takes my hand. "Come back. Visit. Let me have this—have you—even if it's only sometimes."
I think about London. The grey skies. The empty flat. The life that's successful and hollow.
I think about this island. The sun. The sea. The woman who's been waiting.
"I'll come back," I say.
"Promise?"
"Wallahi. I promise."
She kisses me. Pulls me on top of her.
"Then let's make this visit count."
I stay for two weeks instead of four days.
We're careful—separate rooms in Bibi's house, proper behavior at family gatherings. But every night, I slip through the alleys to her door. Every night, she's waiting.
"The family thinks we've reconnected," she laughs one midnight. "Rebuilt the childhood friendship."
"We have." I pull her close. "Just in different ways."
When I leave, she comes to the dock.
"Eid Mubarak," she says, loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Eid Mubarak, cousin."
She hugs me, and her mouth finds my ear.
"Come back soon. I'll be waiting."
I board the dhow. Watch Lamu shrink on the horizon.
But I'm not running this time.
This time, I'm coming back.
Some cousins are meant to be more.
Some islands hold more than memories.
And some homecomings are just the beginning.
Eid Mubarak.
Blessed celebration, indeed.