Sustenance
Before my first appointment, I walk through drizzly Newtown, my shoes belching. Personal bias, maybe, but to me this place has always seemed like a cartoon dog with a giant rain cloud over its head. It makes complete sense that here, in 1903, a gardener would have made a formal request for half a tonne of bone dust to make the flowers grow. Excellent coffee, though, and a static of possibility. At the hospital, the women’s ward is hidden behind a locked door, and I whisper my name like a password. The nurse’s eyes are so soft I can barely meet them. ‘Once you take the pill,’ she says, ‘you might feel very cold, so it’s a good idea to have a thick sweater ready, a flask of hot tea, soup.’ It’s this tender suggestion that makes me cry, not anything before or after: the idea of looking after myself the way I would after an ailing Victorian orphan. I sneeze and get back to the rain.
A week later, Mira makes me eat an omelette. We were surprised by the early sunset and whisper in the twilight of the open microwave. Tea steams between us. She says, ‘I’ll take the day off tomorrow,’ and I say, ‘You really don’t have to,’ and she says, ‘You’re being silly again, Lou.’ From the kitchen window, we can see the windswept bay and a sprinkle of stars over the hill. I want to tell her that I’m scared, and I want to thank her for being here with me, and I want to say that I can do it alone, no problem—but instead we sit in silence, watch as the moon pushes its ghostly glow over the hill, faster than it has any right to.
My stomach still feels like a clenched fist. It’s dark again, and quiet. Mira is curled up around me, her warm breath on my cheek. ‘Did you know,’ I say, ‘that everyone honks in Vic tunnel because a guy buried his pregnant girlfriend in there?’ I wait for her to make the joke I’ve built up in my head, about how I could have it worse or how men would rather borrow shovels than go to therapy. She tightens her arms around me, draws me closer, and yawns into my face. ‘In a moment,’ she mumbles, ‘the pumpkin soup should be ready.’
Sara Bucher has a Master of Creative Writing from the University of Auckland. She currently lives in Pōneke.