Baby Baby
To save their marriage now that the home renovations are complete, Angus and Nazrin buy a baby online. It comes in a flatpack and is a lot heavier than it looks. It takes the two of them to carry it from the front door where the delivery guy has left it leaning against the side of the house, through to the lounge room. They argue down the hallway, Angus wanting to put it in their bedroom which is at the front of the house, and Nazrin wanting to take it straight to the nursery. The lounge room is a compromise which ends in them both feeling like they’ve lost. Consequently, the box stands in the corner untouched for a week until eventually, through some unspoken mutual yielding, they decide Saturday will be the day for unpacking and assembly.
Angus and Nazrin cut through the packing tape and, because it is a baby and not a bookshelf, lay out the components on the kitchen table. It makes a nice change to sit on a chair with the toolkit and instruction book, rather than grubbing around on hands and knees. Angus boils the kettle and makes a pot of tea while Nazrin checks the contents off against the packaging list.
“Angus,” says Nazrin. “There are too many pieces.” Angus takes a look. “There’s enough for two babies here.” Nazrin says, “I don’t want two babies.” Angus says, “Neither do I.”
The company they have purchased the baby from has a strict no returns policy. Nazrin and Angus separate the parts and stow the extras back in the box. “I don’t know how they ever fitted two babies in here,” says Angus. Nazrin finds a roll of builders tape and wraps it tightly around the box which is bulging and by now more than a little worse for wear. When Nazrin is done, Angus hefts the package onto his shoulder and takes it to the spare room where he pushes it to the very back of the top shelf of the wardrobe.
Then Nazrin and Angus make a beautiful baby girl. They name her Freya and celebrate her arrival with expensive champagne. But although they both adore her and love her with all their hearts, she cannot rescue their marriage. Within a year Angus moves out and Freya grows up with two roofs and parallel families.
One afternoon sixteen years later, Nazrin comes home from work to find no dinner heating on the stove and no homework being done. Freya is sitting in her bedroom on the end of her bed, at her feet a pile of old tape and the remains of a box that has seen better days. She is still in her school uniform and in her arms a newborn baby. “Look what I made, Mum. Isn’t he beautiful?”
Suzanne Verrall lives in Australia. She is the author of the poetry collection One Day I Will Go There (Vagabond Press, 2022). Her poetry, flash fiction and essays appear in Australian Poetry Journal, Southampton Review, takahē Magazine and others. For links to her work go to www.suzanneverrall.com