The Second Mother

Mama Amina raised me.

My birth mother died three days after I was born—childbed fever, the old curse. My father's first wife, the woman who should have hated me for being another wife's child, took me to her breast instead.

She nursed me. Fed me. Taught me everything I know.

For thirty years, she was my mother in all but blood.

Now my father is dead, and she wants something different.

"You're all I have left of him," she says.

We're in her quarters—the first wife's rooms in our family compound. Sixty years old, still massive, two-sixty of the maternal authority that shaped my entire life.

"I have nothing now," she continues. "No husband. No children of my own—you know I was barren. Just you. The boy I raised. The son of a woman who died before she could see you walk."

"Mama Amina, you'll always have me—"

"As what?" Her eyes are sharp. "A dutiful son who visits on holidays? A man who sends money but never stays?" She shakes her head. "I raised you, Malik. I gave you everything. Now I want something in return."

"Anything."

"Be careful with that word." She moves closer. "You don't know what I'm asking."

She asks.

And I understand—finally, horribly, thrillingly—what she means.

"You want me to—"

"To be mine. The way you were when you nursed at my breast." She reaches for my face. "I've been alone for thirty years of marriage—your father had four wives, I was never his favorite. I raised his son for another woman. I gave everything and received nothing."

"You received me—"

"I received responsibility. Duty. Love of a sort." Her thumb traces my jaw. "I never received what a woman wants. What a wife deserves. Your father was too busy with his younger wives. And I was too proud to complain."

"Mama—"

"Don't call me that. Not now." She leans close. "Tonight, I'm not your mother. I'm a woman who wants what she's owed."

This is impossible.

She raised me. She's the only mother I've ever known. The thought of touching her—of wanting her—should be obscene.

But I've always known, somewhere beneath the surface. The way I looked at her when I was young. The dreams I pretended not to have. The guilt that followed every fantasy.

"You know," she says, reading my face. "You've always known."

"I never acted—"

"Because I was your father's wife. Because it would have destroyed everything." She begins unwrapping her clothes. "Your father is gone. The obstacles are removed. And I'm tired of waiting."

She reveals herself.

The body that nursed me, that held me when I was sick, that represented every maternal comfort I've ever known. Heavy and soft, marked by sixty years of living, still beautiful in ways that shame me.

"This is what you're looking at," she says. "This is what you've wanted."

"I shouldn't—"

"Shouldn't has controlled your life long enough." She pulls me toward her. "Tonight, we do what we want. What we've both wanted since you were old enough to understand wanting."

"You wanted this? With me?"

"I raised you." Her voice is fierce. "I watched you become a man. Do you think a woman can do that without feelings? Without wondering?"

"Mama—"

"Amina. Just Amina."

I kiss the woman who raised me.

Her mouth is strange and familiar—the lips that kissed my forehead when I was sick, now pressing against mine in ways that rewrite everything. Her body surrounds me the way it did when I was a child, but the meaning has shifted.

"There," she breathes. "That's what I've waited for."

I take her to her bed.

The same bed where she slept with my father, where she spent thirty years being ignored, where she dreamed of things she was too proud to say. I lay her down, worship the body that gave me everything.

"I nursed you here," she says when my mouth finds her breast. "Thirty years ago. You don't remember."

"I don't remember."

"But your body does." She pulls me closer. "Your body knows where it came from. Where it belongs."

I suckle like I did as an infant—instinct taking over, comfort mixing with desire. She moans and holds my head.

"Yes—this is what I needed—what I always needed—"

When I enter her, she weeps.

"Thirty years," she gasps. "Thirty years of nothing. And now—now my son—"

"Not your son. Tonight."

"My everything." She wraps her legs around me. "The boy I raised. The man I made. Take me, Malik. Take what I've been saving for you."

I take everything.

We spend the night dismantling the boundaries we've built.

Every position is an act of transgression. Every orgasm rewrites what we are to each other. By dawn, we're no longer mother and son. We're something else—something without a name, without precedent.

"What happens now?" I ask.

"Now you stay." She pulls me close. "In this house. With me. The way it should have been from the beginning."

"The family will talk—"

"Let them talk. What can they say? That a widow is living with her stepson? It's traditional. Respectable." She smiles. "What happens behind our door is our business."

"And this—what we did—"

"Will continue. Every night. Until I've had everything I'm owed." She kisses me. "I raised you for thirty years. You owe me at least that much."

I stay.

In the house where I grew up. With the woman who raised me. The second mother who became something more.

The family visits for holidays. They see a dutiful son caring for his stepmother. They don't know what happens when they leave—the nights, the mornings, the afternoons when we can't wait.

"They would never understand," Amina says one day.

"They don't need to."

"No. They don't." She reaches for me. "Come. I want to hold you. The way I did when you were small."

I go to her.

The second mother.

The only mother I've ever known.

The woman who raised me.

And claimed me.

Mama wa pili.

Second mother.

First love.

Forever mine.