Not a Fairytale by Shaida Kazie Ali

teaches Nazma to talk in English and Spanish. She takes all my favourite recipes and meticulously types them up and has them printed and bound into a book, protected by plastic sheets. Then she learns to cook them better than I ever could. Gradually the bits of my brain that Nazma has not turned to sludge reappear, and I go back to my neglected dissertation. Life is peaceful.

Fatherhood
    She promised me her firstborn; I’d come to collect. I was happy, I was delighted, I was thrilled. I would have a child of my own to love and nurture, and protect. Some little being who would look up to me even if he outgrew me. I pictured us in front of the fire, him asleep in his crib, me smoking my little pipe, both of us content.
    I expected her to kick up a fuss, and was surprised when she didn’t.
    “Ah, it’s you. At last you’ve come for the child. Took your time, didn’t you?” She glanced irritably at her wristwatch. “Yes, it’s a girl. You said firstborn. You didn’t specify gender. I don’t suppose you have a wet-nurse yet? No? Well, that’s fine, I have one. This here is Sarah, and her little one, Mimi. What? Well of course they’ll have to go with you. She’s only a few days old, she’ll starve to death otherwise. Mimi? Yes, her too, she’s Sarah’s kid. Wet-nurses always have their own children, otherwise they wouldn’t be wet-nurses. Yes, the babies are noisy. No, you don’t get used to it. At least I haven’t.
    “The smell? Just a bit of baby pooh. You’ll stop noticing it soon enough. Besides, she’s breastfed; the smell would be worse if she were on formula. Which reminds me: these three bags contain her nappies. The other ten have her clothes – mostly presents. I haven’t had time to sort them out, I thought you could do that. Then if you’ll look out the window— What’s that? Oh right, let me pick you up. My, you are a heavy fellow, aren’t you? Anyway, that lot downstairs are the toys.
    “The crying? Colic. Should go away in three or four months, or so the baby magazines claim. Sarah? No, dear, she’s the wet-nurse, not the parent, you’ll have to deal with all the other aspects: the bathing, the putting to sleep, the entertaining. And of course Sarah doesn’t do the 3 am feed. She expresses breast milk the night before.
    “Now, I’ve drawn up a schedule for each day of the week. Let’s begin with Monday. That’s your bowling night? Don’t be ridiculous. No, there’ll be none of that. You’ve got a child now: you need to be responsible. There’ll be no more movie nights, no book club, no AA meetings, no full-moon spell nights. Listen, you wanted the child, now you’ve got to live with your decision. You made me promise. A verbal contract. What? You don’t want the baby anymore? Well, I’m not sure if I do either.”

Burial
    M Y BREASTS HAVE BEEN FEELING STRANGE FOR A WHILE : warm, and the skin has changed, like they’re developing cellulite. At first I think it’s hormonal. Even though Nazma’s almost three years old, I imagine it is somehow linked to my pregnancy, or that I am pregnant again. I keep putting off seeing a doctor until the occasional twinge becomes pain.
    Now I know. I have invasive breast cancer but it’s been caught in the first stage. I’ll need some form of surgery; a lumpectomy as the tumour is still small. They say I’ll need radiation therapy as well.
    I phone Salena, across time zones, mountains and oceans, until I am in her bedroom, at midnight, her time. I tell her why I need her to visit me. She thinks I’m catastrophising. But when she finally believes me, I hear her unspoken fears, and this unleashes my terror, as though I’ve rubbed the magic lamp in which it was imprisoned. I imagine her cradling the phone under her ear while her fingers caress the phone’s cord, as though it were my one of my curls, and I’m comforted. She agrees to visit. I feel buoyant. Even though Jimmy has been wonderful, I need my sister.
    Then Salena is with