Vera sat at the table. Her body as rigid as the table itself.
Please stop crying. Please. Go to sleep.
Breathing deeply, she tried to relax. Soon he would calm himself. Surely. The lump in her gut was rising again. It was moving up into her chest. Soon it would be in her throat and she knew she would either cry again or get mad. She didn’t want to get mad. She just wanted a few minutes’ peace.
Vera took another deep breath, willing the lump back down. She tried to close her eyes; she didn’t want to look at the baby monitor again, have it tempt her with its silence and absence of flashing lights, only to disappoint her when they both returned.
The dishes hadn’t been done since last night’s dinner and she needed to shower. There was washing to hang out. So much to do. And all she wanted to do was nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Just for once, she wanted to sleep. Then wake up naturally. Maybe go for a walk or have a snack. Then a shower. Then, simply do whatever she wanted. Mostly Vera wanted to be alone. To lie in bed and cry about how hard everything had become. To ponder the possibility of finding life enjoyable. It seemed to her like such an odd concept.
Where had her freedom gone? How had she once been a person and now was a slave? A prisoner? And why was this okay to everyone else but her?
In all of those books she’d read on motherhood, there had been pictures of family. Happy, round Samoan grandmothers helping their daughters, holding the baby, while the new mum looked on contentedly.
What it must feel like to enjoy your baby, Vera couldn’t imagine. She was too tired.
With the return of the cry and the flashing of the baby monitor lights Vera let out a long, deep sigh. She sighed so hard it winded her just a little. She closed her eyes and squeezed them shut. He wasn’t going to go to sleep. She’d have to walk him. Again.
“Just leave him to cry it out!” Dave would say. “He’ll get tired eventually.”
Didn’t he understand how it felt to listen to that cry? How awful she felt leaving him like that? How all the books had told her it was bad and damaging? Didn’t he realise how mad she got, waiting, hoping for him to shut up and go to sleep so she could relax for at least 45 minutes and have a cup of tea?
It was the anger that scared her. What if she got too mad? She didn’t know herself anymore. She couldn’t trust herself.
Vera got to her feet and stepped carefully toward the door, willing herself to be calm.
In the hall she could hear him more clearly. He was crying. A pissed off scream.
Why can’t you just sleep? she wondered. Other babies slept. He’d shown all the signs that Plunket had told her to look for. Staring into space, rubbing eyes, making fists, but it didn’t matter. Her baby wouldn’t sleep. For some reason she had a difficult baby. Why me? Why not one of those super mums from her antenatal group? The ones who ran marathons not long after giving birth. The ones who smiled brightly as they spoke of fitting back into their pre-baby clothes so soon. They could handle this. Not me.
She stood out into the cool air and for a moment let it wash over her. It caressed her eyelids and burned her cheeks, filling her with freshness.
Lifting the boot of the car, Vera heaved out the buggy, flicking the latch and kicking it out with her foot. As she struggled to click the buggy into place she heard a voice.
“Kia ora!”
Vera looked up.
A woman, smiling broadly, her dark skin wrinkling around her eyes. A hand held high in a wave.
“Oh,” said Vera. “Hi.”
“We’re just moving in,” the woman said. “My whānau and me.”
Dave had seen them arrive last night when he got home from work.
“We better start locking the cars,” he’d said. “There’s a bloody tribe moving in next door.”
Even though the comment had caught in her gut somewhere, she’d laughed. He’d gone on to say something about the neighbourhood going downhill, too many rentals in the area and what not.
Vera smiled back at the woman, wondering what to say. She didn’t want to get too close. Didn’t want her on her doorstep all the time.
She remembered what her dad had said when the property managers had rented one of his flats to a Māori family.
“I told them no Maoris! I bloody told them.”
“Dad!” she’d scolded. “You can’t do that! It’s discrimination!”
“Love,” he’d said in that condescending way. “It’s not discrimination. It’s fact.”
She’d taken a breath, preparing for a lengthy debate with him on race relations and racism in New Zealand. The history of injustice. She was fresh out of uni and knew her stuff.
“Now before you get on your high horse,” he had interrupted, his hands up in defence, subtly implying it was her that was out of line. Crazy. Irate. “I know what I’m talking about love. These families, they pile in to a flat, just a few of them at first, then BOOM! You’ve got the whole bloody hapu, iwi and marae living there, digging up the lawn for a hangi pit!”
“Dad! You can’t–”
“Vera, love, I speak from experience,” he said, his chubby hands at his chest. “This has happened to me, more than I would like to admit. Every time I’ve given them a chance, it’s the same thing again and again. Old cars on the front lawn, cops called to domestics, other tenants from next door complaining. It just makes sense to say no. Enough is enough.”
She wanted to argue. She wanted to tell him that you can’t just group people by their race, as if that is an indication of everything they are, do or will be. But she didn’t. She let it go. Why had she? Was it because she knew there was no arguing with him? He was a fanatic. He would never change his mind, but couldn’t change the subject. But part of her was afraid. Did she, part of her, deep down, agree with him?
“Well, welcome to the neighbourhood,” Vera said, stiffly.
The woman nodded. “You got a pēpe do ya?” she asked.
Vera stared at her for a second and the woman motioned to the buggy.
“Oh, yeah. A little boy. Six months. Won’t bloody sleep.”
The woman smiled. “I remember when mine were that little. They didn’t sleep either. They’re big now though. My boy’s 23. My big girl is 20 and the youngest is 17. But her girl is four.”
Jesus. Dave was right. It was a tribe.
Vera didn’t ask whose girl was four. Surely 17 was too young to have a four-year-old?
“Wow. Big family.”
The woman smiled. “Yep, big Māori whānau.”
“Well,” Vera said. “I better get that boy up. Taking him for a walk to get him to sleep.”
The woman nodded and Vera smiled as she walked back inside.
Jack was standing up when she entered the room. His chubby hands were clutched around the rim of the cot gate and he was red in the face. He smiled when she entered as if he had won the battle. Then he yawned. A large hearty yawn. For some reason this made her even madder. The fact that he was tired but just would not sleep. Out of sheer determination.
She took a breath.
When she went back outside to slip Jack into his buggy the woman was gone. Vera felt the flood of relief wash over her. When had talking to people become so difficult? So terrifying?
Her breath made thick clouds in front of her eyes. She stared at each cloud as it formed, watching it slowly fade away. She knew the walk would do her good but she’d rather not be walking. She’d rather be anywhere than right here, walking out of necessity in the cold. There was something about not having a choice that made her feel so resentful.
Resentment.
So far that was all she’d felt about being a mother.
Resentment.
From the very beginning that was it. From the beginning of labour, during the 35 hours of intense pain and torture, even at the end when she had a child. All she could feel was resentment. As they stitched her up and wheeled her into the ward, as her mother and husband left her for the night to recover and deal with a brand new screaming infant herself, all she could feel was resentment. Shock and fear.
There may have been love somewhere. Maybe buried deep down beneath the other emotions. But she struggled to find it.
At night she lay in bed, wide awake, finally free but unable to sleep, feeling terrible.
I do love him. I’m sure I do, she’d say to herself.
Then she would relive the labour. The invasive pain. The terror. The what ifs: What if I’d dropped him when they first placed him on my chest, all slippery and slimy? What if I had the epidural then moved as they’d threaded the tube into my spine, paralysing myself for life?
Her mind would roll through it all. Again and again. Until she was slick with sweat and rigid with fear.
She slowed down, locking the buggy wheel, bending to peer in at the side.
There he was, snuggled up inside. Two little eyes, dazed, but open.
She would need to walk around the block again.
When he was finally asleep, his little eyes closed, his face smushed against the side of the buggy, she felt it. The love that was hidden beneath panic and tension would come flooding to the surface. His angelic face, so peaceful. Her heart would swell at his helplessness and she’d feel awful but relieved.
As she rounded the corner to her driveway a loud car drove past. Her stomach tensed. Please still be asleep. Please, she willed. She peeked into the buggy. Thank God. His tiny eyelids were still closed.
Carefully, she parked the buggy. There was no way to get it inside without waking him so she pushed open the backyard gate and wheeled him around. Jack could sleep in the buggy while she zipped to the kitchen for a cup of tea.
She’d just flicked on the kettle when she remembered the wet washing in the machine. I’ll just hang it out while the kettle boils, she told herself. Then I’ll sit in the yard and drink my tea.
As she heaved the washing out of the machine and into the basket, she felt for the first time all day that things were okay. That she had done okay. Jack was asleep and soon the washing would be out and she would have achieved something today. Be it small. Be it nothing her former self would have considered an achievement, still, now, it was something.
Holding the basket in one hand, she quietly opened the back door.
The buggy was where she had left it. Thank God. She was always worried that someone would steal him. But pretty sure they’d bring him back when they realised how little he slept.
Just as she released her grip on the door a large gust of wind blew through the yard. Feeling it against her, she made to grab the door, trying to prevent its slam from waking Jack.
But her hand was too slow. The washing basket flew from her arm and the door slammed into the side of the house.
There was a silent moment where she hoped that he would stay asleep, not wake up. A Schrödinger’s moment, where both of these things were still a possibility. But then the lid came off the box.
A loud cry ripped from the buggy. A call out. A disruption. A complaint at being woken.
Maybe it was the harsh cry. Maybe it was the clean wet washing strewn across the ground.
But without warning, the lump jumped up from her stomach and out of her mouth.
“FUCK!” she screamed. “WHY CAN’T YOU FUCKING SLEEP?” The words kept coming. She didn’t know how to stop them. The washing flew through the air. The basket too.
The cries grew louder and more distressed. Vera’s did too.
She swore till there was spit on her chin and her eyes filled with tears. She slumped on the ground, heaving in gulps of air and sobbing. Releasing deep sadness from her gut. From the lump.
Jack wailed, on and on. Vera lay her face in her palms. Sitting there, on the cold ground, amidst strewn washing, she sat there. Weeping.
And the wind blew.
And then there was the voice.
“Oh love,” she said. “You look like you could use a cuppa tea, huh?”
Vera looked up and there she was. The woman from next door. The old Māori woman, leaning over the fence, her forearms resting on the wood.
Vera’s heart filled with horror. She had been seen like this. Losing it. Someone had witnessed her losing her mind.
“Oh,” she managed. “I’m fine. I just…”
“You don’t have to be fine, love,” the woman said. “It’s okay to not be fine sometimes aye.”
Vera just looked at her. Could she? Could she go to this woman for help?
“Come on, love. You need a cuppa and I love cuddling babies. Suits us both, kāhore?”
Finally, Jack was quiet. Typical. He was wide-eyed and curious as they entered the neighbour’s house.
“Ah, here he is!” the woman called as Vera came through the door, her arms outstretched to take him. “What’s his name?”
“Jack.”
“Ah Jack, a good name for a boy.” She spoke to him. Right to him, and he looked up at her and chuckled.
The woman laughed a husky laugh. “He’s a tinker this one. Well Jack, I’m Whaea. Not like the flame but like the mother.”
“Whaea,” Vera said. “How do you spell it?”
“W-H-A-E-A.”
Vera nodded.
“Causes all kinds of trouble, people running around calling my name, makes people think the house is burning down. Then of course if it is burning down, people just think someone’s calling me.”
She laughed again, a big warm laugh.
“I’m Vera.”
“Kia ora Vera. Nice to meet you. Come on in. We’ll get you a cuppa and we might have some chocolate bickies around here too.”
Vera wondered who she meant by ‘we’ but then found three teenage girls sitting around the living room. One leant over a box, pulling odds and ends from it. The other sat, brushing the third girl’s long, black hair.
“Vera, these are my lazy girls,” Whaea announced.
“Oi! Ma!” called the girl at the box. “I’m helping! Look, unpacking all this stuff.”
“Yeah, yeah, just joking with you! Girls, this is Vera and her bub Jack.”
“Hi,” they all chorused, their eyes flicking up at her.
“These are my girls, Mia and Moana and Kareraena, my niece.”
“Hi,” Vera said, smiling. “I live next door.”
“Oh true?” Mia said, looking up from her box.
“Yeah,” she replied, though she wasn’t sure it was a question.
“What do you feel like Vera? Tea? Coffee?”
“Tea’s fine, thank you.”
“Well seeing as I’m holding wee Jack here, maybe one of these big girls would help us out aye?”
Moana stopped brushing her cousin’s hair. “You’re up, Kare. I’ll have it white with one sugar. How do you take it Vera?”
Kare sighed and rolled her eyes then got to her feet, marching into the kitchen.
“Ka pai, Kare, you’re a good girl.”
“Anything for you Aunty,” she said sweetly.
“Hear that you two?” Whaea called, walking out of the kitchen. “Anything for me, aye? That’s what I like to hear.” She sat down on an armchair by the ranchslider and started bouncing Jack on her knee. He leant into her, his little eyes at half-mast.
“You have nice hair,” Moana said from the couch.
Vera was surprised it was directed at her. “What me? Oh God, my hair’s a mess,” she said, her hands flying up to her hastily bundled ponytail. “I haven’t even touched it for days.”
“Come on, have a seat here. I’ll brush it for you.”
“Oh, that’s alright,” Vera started, but as she did, she realised how long it had been since she’d felt that feeling, that caress of someone else touching her, in a way that wanted nothing from her.
“Come on, I’ll practise my braiding on you.”
“She’s good at it too,” Mia added. “See?” She pointed to her head. She had an intricate French braid in her hair, pinned up in a flower-type arrangement.
“Wow. That’s amazing,” Vera said, turning and sitting down on a pillow in front of Moana.
“Yep, our Mo wants to be a hairdresser,” Whaea added.
“Yeah, when Divani is at school next year I’ll start training,” she said from behind, her gentle fingers slipping the tie from Vera’s hair and unfurling the mess of knots. “Now we’ve moved here it’s even closer. And there’s heaps of salons down in the village. Bound to find somewhere to work while I train.”
So it was Moana, the 17-year-old who had the four-year-old. Vera couldn’t imagine having a child at 13. She could hardly manage hers now at 31. It can’t have been easy.
“And your ma’s here to help out too,” Whaea added. “I can help with school pickups and sick days.”
“And me too,” Mia added, setting aside her box and bundling all of the newspaper into a ball.
“You’ll be busy sis,” Mo added.
“This one’s off to drama school, Vera.”
“Really? Which one?”
“The one. The big one,” Whaea said, the pride evident on her face.
“Toi Whakaari,” Mia said, smiling.
“Oh wow. That’s really hard to get in to isn’t it?”
“Not for our girl,” Whaea said. “She’s a star.”
“I’m not a star yet, Ma,” Mia added. “I’m pretty shit scared to be honest. Some of these kids work their asses off to get in. They’ve been to other schools, already have degrees. I just auditioned. And got in.”
“She’s just worried they’ll think she played the Māori card Vera,” Whaea said. “That she doesn’t deserve it. But you do babe. You worked hard.”
“You got in coz you’re bloody good sis,” Mo added. “You’ll have to come and see, Vera. Watch one of her shows. She’s good. Really good.”
“I’d like that,” Vera said. She could hardly imagine what it would be like to go out at all without Jack. Let alone to something completely unrelated to parenting. She’d have to check with Dave first though. See if it was okay with him.
“Here we go,” Kareraena called, coming back into the room. She held cups of tea in both hands and a packet of biscuits under her arm. “Just white aye Vera? No sugar?”
“Just white is fine, thanks.” She took the hot cup in her hands and lifted it to her mouth. The warm liquid hit her tongue and flowed down her throat, filling her with warmth. She sighed, loudly.
Kare laughed. “Sounds like you really needed that cuppa.” She passed Vera the packet of biscuits and she took one.
“I really did. Thank you.”
Vera looked over to Jack, now asleep on Whaea’s lap, his eyes heavy, his face slumped in surrender against her large bosom. Finally calm. Whaea looked down on his sleepy body and smiled, the pleasure in his presence clear on her face.
Finally, he sleeps, Vera thought. Here. Now. Amidst the chatter. In a home that is not his own. Away from his toys, his cot and everything he knows, he sleeps.
Amongst these women, who care so much for each other and for her; a woman they don’t even know.
Vera took another sip of her tea and swallowed. She closed her eyes, revelling in the feeling of Moana’s fingers in her hair, listening as Mia sang quietly in Māori.
Finally calm.