Over the weekend, I painted the nursery. I painted the stripes along the back wall, the stripes that everyone told me would be too much work. They told me I should plan on something else, that the tape wouldn’t hold back the paint.
And maybe they were right, because when I peeled back the tape, the paint had seeped through, white bleeding out against the blue. But also, maybe they were wrong, because what the tape could not hold in was only really noticeable if you were really looking.
And most people aren’t looking.
There is a quaking inside me, the little one making himself known. I place a hand to my belly, and he bumps into me like we are strangers in the same hall. It’s then when I consider my body not a temple, but something much more important, much warmer than cool stone and sanctified floors.
My body: a home.
My fingers run over the books I’ve collected, familiar titles from my youth that I plan on sharing with the little one. I imagine us together, sitting in the rocking chair before bed, as I tell him stories of hungry caterpillars becoming butterflies, breakfast foods of the color green, and mischievous little rabbits sneaking into gardens.
Over dinner, at the table, I ask my husband if our son will find it strange to be named after someone he will never meet. My husband sets down his fork and meets me in the eyes. He says he doesn’t think so.
When the lights are off and we lie in bed, I tell my husband that it bothers me that his name will only ever be just that, a name. I tell my husband about how I will tell stories to our son about his namesake and he will listen, but it will mean nothing to him. In time, he will learn to connect the name to the photo on the wall, but he will feel indifferent.
I tell my husband there is still a childish part inside me that will want to hold our son and cry out, “Dad, look what I did! Did you see me? Are you watching?”
It will never be enough to tell my son how much his namesake would have loved him, and that all I have to show for it are bedtime eulogies.
My husband listens. He turns in bed and places his hand on mine, the way he does as he prepares to disagree with me. He says that the little one feels as I feel while housed in my body, and that means the little one will inherit all my love without any of my grief.
The little one bumps into me again, probably to agree.
I place a hand to my belly before I drift to sleep.
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140,258 Literary Works • 673,074 Reviews
Hi there, farq4d! Nite here to review.
Overall, I think this is a great little bittersweet story about preparing for parenthood and grief.
I think the opening story of painting the stripes is great. It links to the idea of perfectionism, with outsiders saying there's no point in having stripes if they can't be done perfectly, but ultimately, the narrator decides they don't care. Even if there's imperfections in the striping, they find that the result was worth the work and the flaws are hardly perceptible.
This is nitpicky, but I think I would prefer "I painted the nursery over the weekend." I'm not sure why, exactly. I think if this was part of a larger story, then I would prefer starting with the time frame. But since this is the beginning of the story, it feels stronger when you start with the action.
This is a great sentiment, and also ties in to the same idea of purity/perfection versus the actual messiness of life. The body that is a temple, much like the unpainted house, is something pure and ideal, but it doesn't have the warm, lived-in feel of a home.
Mild grammar thing here, "looks me in the eye" is more grammatically correct.
The transition here is a little abrupt. Starting with the lights being off gave me the slightly odd impression at first that they were still at the dinner table, but the lights were suddenly turned off. I'd write the transition like "Later that night, lying in bed under cover of darkness, I tell my husband..."
I hadn't realized this at first, but this is the only dialogue in the entire piece. The rest of the story is either the narrator thinking or telling us about conversations with her husband but only showing it indirectly. The only conversation the reader directly witnesses is this hypothetical one-sided one with a person who can't respond. I'm not sure if this was an intentional choice or if it just happened that way, but I think it's effective. Of course, it could be argued that seeing the conversations and the body language between the narrator and her husband could also be valuable and worth exploring. Whether to show or summarize a given scene is not always obvious, and there's several valid choices.
Aww, this made me tear up a little! Very sweet. I can feel the connection and love between the narrator and her husband here.
Overall, this was a sweet little story. Thank you for sharing with us and keep writing!
hi twin!
i read this when you first published it, but i figured i would review it!
this is such a brilliant metaphor for grief! the narrator tries to create something perfect. i guess a lot of stories start that way. she tries to contain everything, but grief is like the paint. it finds its way through. i take this to represent how people on the outside rarely see the quiet and persistent ways that grief lingers. it's not really theirs to know, but at the same time, you want the comfort of them understanding. most won’t notice the bleeding edges, but the narrator does.
and it’s not just about grief; it’s also about love. i think the act of preparing the nursery is an act of love and one of envisioning the future. this stays the same, even as the past seeps into it. the past tends to do that a lot.
this feels like a rejection of a lot of things i read about motherhood. there is always some kind of biblical weight to it, something that redefines the body as a temple. yet i think the most beautiful imagery is the kind that feels familiar. everyone wants to be a temple when you think about it, but the concept of home is more welcoming. temples are places of reverence, of worship, of things lost to time. but a home is alive. it is where people grow, where memories are made.
i think it also speaks to legacy; the narrator’s father is gone, but they are still creating something living and full of love. a temple can house the past, but a home shapes the future. it will shape a very real future.
this is such a great piece of characterization! he is written to offer another perspective. not to invalidate, but to shift the lens. since we are only given the narrator's point of view, this is refreshing. i think it also offers hope that the child will not carry the weight of loss, only the warmth of what remains. it’s a profound, simple truth. grief shapes parents, but it does not have to shape a child. usually, it doesn't.
but yeah, this is gorgeous! i'm not a big prose fan, but a lot of your writing articulates things that are incredibly difficult to put into words. this is an example of that.
best,
chi
ahhhh thank you for your review, im glad the first metaphor was clear enough I didnt know if it was too ambiguous.