A Day on Maternity Leave

I wake up first. It’s five in the morning. I wonder if we can have sex on the couch, but Fredrik is sleeping soundly, and I don’t have the heart to wake him. I get up carefully, brushing my teeth in the dark so the light won’t spill into the bedroom. In the kitchen, I make coffee and drink it standing by the window. The sky is already lightening, that pale winter grey that never quite becomes bright. I think about the day ahead. It feels both full and empty.

I write 500 words. It doesn’t take long, but they are not good words. I try not to dwell on it. It’s impossible to edit an empty page.

When Bean wakes, I close the laptop too quickly, as if I’ve been doing something secret. She watches me from the crib, alert and serious, her mouth already forming the shape of a complaint. I pick her up and carry her to the kitchen. The light has shifted; it’s flatter now, more metallic. It’s hard to get used to the grey. From the moment we open up the curtains to the moment we close them, the outside is monochrome. It’s generous to call it light.

In the afternoon, we go on a walk, Bean and I. We always walk the same way. I push the stroller toward the beach. It’s harder now that the ground is covered in snow; you can’t always tell the difference between a proper path and untouched ground. Bean sleeps while I push through the harbour. All the cafés and shops are closed for the winter, except for the Fiskrökeri. I buy hot smoked salmon for lunch.

I go to the Espresso House, right next to the library. I leave the stroller outside while I drink my latte. I meet a woman on the steps of the coffee shop. I’m wearing headphones and can’t hear her, but I see her gesturing to me. She says something in Swedish, too quickly for me to understand.

‘Sorry,’ I say.

‘When did you change the stroller attachment?’

We chat a bit. Her daughter is four months and hates the bassinet. And then she asks suddenly: ‘How are you enjoying your maternity leave?’ We chat some more. Her name is Maria. We talk about air quality and baby swim classes and an old factory that left people with cancer.

I return the library books Fredrik took for Bean. We still have one at home, Lilla Kanin Leker. He said Bean liked it the most, that it was the most relatable to her. In it, a small rabbit plays peekaboo and enjoys the swing. I can see what he means by relatable.

In the shop, I buy milk and a piece of Västerbotten pie. I want to buy a bottle of wine but Swedesh government has a monopoly on alcohol, and I have to go to a different shop for that, and I am not even sure Systembolaget allows strollers.

Outside, the cold sharpens everything. The wheels squeak a little as I push forward. Bean stirs but doesn’t wake. Her face is flushed, one mitten slipping off, her hand curled into itself like it’s holding something invisible.

At home, I line up the groceries on the counter. The milk goes into the fridge, the pie into the microwave. I notice the couch again, the way the cushions dip where we always sit, how familiar it looks, and it’s not even our couch, we are staying at Fredrik’s mum’s place while she plays golf in Spain. The apartment smells faintly of salmon and snow melting off my boots. We eat lunch.

Later, when Bean wakes, I lift her, press my face into her neck. She smells like sleep and something sweet I can’t name. For a moment, everything narrows to this weight, this warmth. How does it feel to be so perfect?

I think about the words I wrote. I can remember the first sentence and the last, but everything in between already feels blurred, like something I dreamt and then lost upon waking. I tell myself this is normal, that writing now has to happen in small, imperfect bursts. Still, there’s a faint panic in it, the sense that something is slipping.

Outside the window, kids drag sleds across the snow. I wonder what it would feel like to be pulled instead of pushing.

We play with Bean on the floor. She is crawling now, fast and determined, her movements uneven but urgent. She pulls herself toward everything: the table leg, the edge of the couch, my jeans. She wants to stand up and doesn’t yet understand why her body won’t cooperate. Each attempt ends the same way, with a soft collapse and a look of brief betrayal.

When Bean falls asleep, I finish reading Hark by Alice Vincent. Her writing is fierce and gorgeous, her prose is precise and intimate. She writes from a place of rupture, but with the light. It’s memoir, cultural criticism, and close observation all in one, about listening, female interiority, creative identity, and the slow work of self-attunement. It’s a book that doesn’t shout for attention, but, honestly, once it has yours, it doesn’t let go. I reread some passages.

Before we turn off the lights, I walk into Bean’s room once more. I stand there longer than necessary, listening to her breathe. On the couch, Fredrik is already under the covers. I slide in beside him. He reaches for my hand.