feel most of the time,” Aurelia can’t help herself from saying.
Derry deduces her meaning, looks from Coco to her. “I don’t know how you do it,” she says, round-eyed with seriousness.
Aurelia adores Derry for precisely four seconds. This second expedition into the wilderness of motherhood reminds her that the job comes without any validation. Everyone’s out to advise you, or point out that something you’re doing is wrong, or even life-threatening. No one praises you—unless you’re a father, in which case it seems you only have to look at the baby for people to hail you as some kind of Woke Hero. A father who changes a nappy is a god. A mother who continues to breastfeed through mastitis and hemorrhoids and a third-degree tear is just a mother. Still, she hates that she feels the need for praise. Has she really become that weak?
“Come on, Mumma,” Gaia says, pulling at her arm. “Let’s go do the photos.”
Coco slides off the nipple, still half-asleep. “Shhh,” Aurelia tells Gaia. “We need to wait until Maren’s back from getting the shopping so she can look after Coco.”
Derry’s ears prick up. “I can look after the baby if you like?”
“Really?” Aurelia says, her mood lifting.
“And Gaia,” Derry says. Gaia’s face drops. Aurelia fastens up her bra quickly and passes over the sleepy bundle to Derry.
“You’re a natural,” Aurelia tells her, and it is Derry’s turn to beam. For a moment Aurelia feels grateful for Derry. They’ve known each other since before Gaia was born, and when they met she believed they would become friends, maybe even as close as Tom and Clive. After all, they’re similar, at least on the surface—both freelance creatives, both descended of Welsh stock, both shop at John Lewis, Toast, and Estée Lauder, listen to Sia and Sigur Rós, favor pinot noir. Both studied at Russell Group universities and are roughly the same age—they can remember cassette tapes, rotary dial telephones, and sticking posters of Keanu Reeves circa Bill and Ted to their bedroom walls. Even so, they’ve never managed to forge a particularly strong friendship. Something about Derry rubs Aurelia the wrong way and she’s spent time trying to put her finger on it, without success. Perhaps deep down she envies Derry her child-free, well-rested existence, and this is what has fundamentally prevented an otherwise beautiful friendship from blossoming. Aurelia rarely sees many of her tribe because they’re all so busy dealing with teething, weaning, or infected children. Besides Maren, Derry’s the only woman she sees much of here in Norway. Maybe now they’re making progress toward a friendship. After all, Derry is here for a good while this time. It would be wrong not to take advantage of female companionship.
Or at the very least, the offer of a moment’s peace.
* * *
—
Gaia watches her mumma tiptoe out of the room to the darkroom. She looks at the coloring-in book and pack of crayons her mumma has placed in her lap to occupy her, then at Derry, who is holding baby Coco and staring at Gaia with a strange expression. It’s strange because it’s neither a cross nor a happy expression. If Gaia had to draw her face she’d do a straight line for Derry’s mouth and big circles for her eyes, which are pinned on her.
“Aren’t you supposed to be drawing?” Derry asks at last.
Stung by Derry’s tone, Gaia plucks a blue crayon from the pack and starts to shade in the ocean of a cartoonish pirate scene. When she dares lift her eyes a little in Derry’s direction she sees she is staring at baby Coco with that same look on her face. The way she holds Coco is funny, too. She doesn’t touch her—just has Coco laid on her lap like she’s a book, or a cushion. Most people stroke Coco’s cheeks, or hold her tiny hands.
“Do you like your baby sister?” Derry says.
Gaia nods, and instantly her tummy flutters. She told a lie. She tries to tell herself that actually she didn’t tell a lie because she didn’t speak, but even so she feels bad. But it feels wrong to say that no, she doesn’t like her baby sister. That seems mean, even though it’s the truth.
“I hated my sister,” Derry says then, and Gaia lifts her eyes to her, shocked. “She was mean to me. She’d pinch herself and tell Mum that I did it until I put tacks in her shoes. She didn’t pinch herself again after that.”