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By Asem Sharaf

After a long weekend back home, my cousin Niko surprised me with his jeep outside the farmhouse. I rejoiced at the sight of his familiar face, and flung my arms around his neck and then around his large jolly frame to plant a hearty kiss on his cheek. He laughed, made a face for the show of it, and hustled me into the car, scatting white goats and brown chickens.

“Trying to make the farmhands jealous?” he joked, and winked at me as one of the new lads eyed me as he walked past. I.

“No need,” I teased, and punched his arm. “I’ve you to do that. So, what’s up?”

“Ready for some hot avgolemono soup?” he asked, gunning up the engine. “Your aunt decided to make the most fantastic recipe on the planet, and we figured it’d be a shame not to share it with our only lonely college-entrapped kinswoman before she goes back to studying this week. Unless you want to stay on grandpa’s sweet-smelling chicken-dung-littered farm for another night of cabbage and leek pie”

I raised an eyebrow. “For the record, boy, when it comes to avgolemono, I was born ready.” My words were emphasized by the seatbelt’s decisive click. The cross that dangled from Niko’s rearview mirror tapped the windshield as he steered the car along the bends of the road, fresh beads of color trickling down the glass. I glanced at the chipped and faded ice-scraper lying at my feet, and smiled. There, something to get Niko for Christmas now.

“Boy,” he grumbled, and swerved over a pothole.

The house was only a half-hour away from the farm, a good couple hours away from the campus, and they were almost at my aunt’s when I noticed Niko staring at me from the corner of his eye. After a moment he cleared his throat, now peering intently down the empty road ahead. “Any news from the homeland?”

By the homeland, he meant across the sea, where the rest of our family and many of our friends lived. “No.” The usual question, followed by what had become the usual answer.

“He’s a busy fellow.” Niko turned into the neighborhood and returned the wave of an old woman walking her dog. “I heard the fishing industry’s been booming ever since the water level’s been rising. Don’t forget, that means he’s mostly at sea, trading pens for tillers and post-offices for lighthouses.” His sigh mirrored my own. “You know how old-fashioned they are back at the island anyway. Christ, no one even has a computer yet.”

But I knew what he was thinking. Why had she lost her heart to a man of the Sea? That was one temptress, and one lover, whom no woman could contest against.

“He hasn’t forgotten you,” Niko insisted against my silence. “A few more months, and you’ll see him again.”

A splurge of red pitter-patted against the glass, and struck the window like ocean spray stained crimson at sunset. I swallowed hard as they pulled into the driveway. “Of course,” I whispered, but all I could see was the red of the window.

“Angreek87″