Milk
47 Milk I loved to watch my grandmother boil milk, turn the soft curd hard to make yogurt she called leban. She poured it, steaming, into a green ceramic bowl to cool, dipping her finger to test for the right temperature before adding spoonfuls of culture saved from the last batch. It cooled with a sweet, thin layer of skin, cowshie, a delicacy she’d skim from the surface, give to me before blanketing the bowl like a newborn until it set. In her village, girls were not coddled. Married off at 12, twice divorced by 40, she resented the men she left behind. I became a reminder of what she never had, what might have been. Some days she was bitter as raw olives, threatening to boil the girl out of me. Her face red as the blush she hated to see me wear—Sharmuta! she’d shout, whorrre! making sure I understood. My lip-glossed lips pursed tight, coat hiding sexier outfits tucked into my waistband that bulged like the bump of pregnant women. Women she mocked, made fun of. But in the warmth of her kitchen I got a taste of the mothering she gave my brother—less of the ambivalence that made me cautious as one who carefully tastes an open bottle of milk, just as it begins 48 to spoil—testing for that edge that yields a residue of sugar—before the acid aftertaste. ...
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