MONO ISSUE 2 - Flipbook - Page 77
dreams,’ she said. ‘There was this nurse and she was 106 years old and she presented
me with this gift, and it looked like something that could have been made by Louise
Joséphine Bourgeois. ‘God, it was so wonderful.’ He smiled generously, as he tended to
do when she got excited. She felt the contours of something beneath her pillow. When
she peeled back the fabric, there it was. When she arrived home, she bathed her schatz
in the bathroom sink, manoeuvring it ever so slightly to fit into a pickle jar. She set it
down on the dresser in the baby’s room. With just the milky phosphorescence of the
moon, the centre-piece whirred ethereally.
‘Holy shit! What’s that?’
‘Calm down El. It’s just the umbilical cord the kind young nurse gave us to take home.’
‘The 100-year-old nurse?’
‘106, actually—’
‘Where’s the baby?’
‘She’s over there, sleeping. I didn’t want to wake her.’
‘So, you’re really going to keep that?’
‘You’d happily tuck into my placenta but I can’t take home the lasting physical bond I
have with my first-born daughter?’
‘Well, when you put it like that.’ She giggled frivolously and stamped her feet, as if he
had just agreed to take her to Disney Florida or buy her a miniature daschund. My own
umbilical! Oh honey, you shouldn’t have! She kissed Elliot on the eyelids, because to
shut his mouth, she needed first to shut his eyes. And quickly, the rapid flickering of his
gaze quietened beneath the delicate veil of skin. His body became slack and with his
chin resting in her neck like a muzzle, ‘I’m pretty knackered,’ he slurred, ‘Good night’.
The following weeks passed by like a dream. Elliot was working, and Marie stayed
home to look after the child. One morning, as she pottered around the flat, there was a
ring at the door. Behind the frosted glass stood the muffled silhouette of Elliot’s sister,
Bridget, laden with rainbow coloured decorations.
‘Oh, I wasn’t suspecting you,’ Marie welcomed her.
‘Suspecting?’
‘Sorry, I meant expecting. I’m getting my words all minced these days,’ she puffed a
little breathlessly, partially covering her breasts which leaked beneath her t-shirt. ‘I’m
lactating like a dairy cow.’
‘I’m just popping by,’ Bridget said, ‘with some gifts.’
‘Gifts?’
‘For the baby’s first birthday of course, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?’
‘Oh, of course not,’ Marie replied, pretending to sever a loose thread from her cardigan.
Marie ushered her sister-in-law into the nursery as she prepared some tea. Her
preparations were soon interrupted by the cacophony of smashed glass and human
terror. Marie rushed into the nursery to find her schatz glistening blue on the floor,
surrounded by the fragments of Bridget’s alarm. Marie gathered the thing up, supporting
the spine with the crook of her elbow, as she cooed softly, ‘There there mein schatz.
shhh, shhh.’
‘What is it?’ Bridget peered over Marie’s shoulder, tremulous with terror and
inquisitiveness. ‘Where is the baby, Marie?’
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