The summer my cousins return from Nairobi, we sit in a circle by the oak tree in my aunt’s garden. They look older. Amel’s hardened nipples push through the paisley of her blouse, minarets calling men to worship. When they left, I was twelve years old and swollen with the heat of waiting. We hugged at the departure gate, waifs with bird chests clinking like wood, boyish, long skirted figurines waiting to grow into our hunger. My mother uses her quiet voice on the phone: Are they all okay? Are they healing well? She doesn’t want my father to overhear. Juwariyah, my age, leans in and whispers I’ve started my period. Her hair is in my mouth when I try to move in closer– how does it feel? She turns to her sisters and a laugh that is not hers stretches from her body like a moan. She is more beautiful than I can remember. One of them pushes my open knees closed. Sit like a girl. I finger the hole in my shorts, shame warming my skin. In the car, my mother stares at me through the rear view mirror, the leather sticks to the back of my thighs. I open my legs like a well-oiled door, daring her to look at me and give me what I had not lost: a name.