Chapter Bear
Bear
Cora watches as the letters form, each one emerging like some magical and extraordinary thing from the nib of the registrar’s pen as it moves across the page.
Bear Atkin. Bear. Just four letters, B-E-A-R, but each one feels charged, no longer just consonants and vowels.
A great surge of—what is this thing?—joy, yes, that’s it, joy—courses through Cora’s being.
A whole-body dizzying happiness. She glances at Maia, who stands beside her chair, and sees the surprise on her face.
As the registrar hands Cora the certificate, she tells her she’s been doing this job for twenty-two years and has never had a Bear before.
She cranes over the desk and looks into his pram.
“But it’s just perfect for you, isn’t it?
” And then to Maia, “You look like a very proud big sister. Take good care of this little Bear of yours, won’t you? ”
Outside the office, Maia is giddy. “I can’t believe you chose my name—I just—I just never thought you’d call him my name!” Cora kisses her forehead and puts the envelope into her bag, as Maia wheels Bear onto the street.
At first, Cora feels as though she is floating above the paving and, catching sight of her reflection in a shop window, she’s surprised to find she’s a solid, grounded thing.
Maia is a few steps ahead, but Cora hears her stream of chatter, observes her lovely back as she bends over the handle to bring her face closer to her brother’s, and is elated.
She knows this will be a defining moment in Maia’s life, a moment when she was given a voice and wasn’t asked to fit into the shadow of her parents’ marriage.
But then, before they’ve even reached the top of the hill, comes the knotty realization of what she’s done.
If Gordon were to discover the name was Maia’s choice…
She blinks and tries to push the thought away.
He’s never hurt Maia. But perhaps that’s because Maia has been good and small and shown herself only in the places where Cora has sensed it won’t put her in harm’s way, always calling her back, sending her off for a bath, or to fetch some unneeded thing if she’s felt her stepping too close to the fire.
Beneath Cora’s autumn layers, her top begins to dampen. Her sanitary pad becomes a heavy wodge between her legs, while a cold sweat mottles her forehead and prickles at the back of her neck. It’s as if every fluid part of her is attempting to escape her body. To make a run for it.
What has she done? How could she have been so stupid?
And Bear. Without it being the choice of a nine-year-old—because he can never know that it was—how can she possibly explain this name?
A name that will seem like she’s chosen it to humiliate, to say that his family tradition, his father’s approval, means so little, she didn’t even confine her betrayal to something ordinary. Something like Julian, perhaps.
She thinks of repeating Maia’s words, of telling him that a boy called Bear is someone who will be soft and cuddly but also brave and strong.
But she knows he will find little value in these qualities.
That they will only make him more furious.
And how will she tell him? What possible time or place will soften this news?
Catching him in the right mood, cooking his favorite dinner, none of these things will help.
And the goodwill he’s shown toward her recently, through her pregnancy and the early weeks with the baby, when he’s treated her with the professional consideration he extends to all new mothers in his practice…
that won’t withstand this. What was she thinking?
She will have to change it. She’ll have to go back to the registrar and apologize.
It can’t be too late; the ink is barely dry.
She’ll understand that it’s the turbulence of the storm; of being awake all night after weeks of broken sleep.
It’s not a normal time. But as Maia reaches the zebra crossing, she turns, her face open in a way Cora has rarely seen, the tension that usually shapes her features momentarily lifted.
“Mama—” And that name, she hasn’t called her that for years, long since replaced by Mum.
“Thank you, Mama. This is just one of the most special things that’s ever happened to me. ”
Cora checks her watch as they walk along the edge of the common.
There are five hours until Gordon comes in from work, which seems both an eternity and not nearly long enough.
She must make some kind of plan. Cora has only just remembered Maia is meant to have swimming tonight and wonders if the sports center will be open.
Mehri has taken her since the baby was born.
Can she ask again, just one more week, if she’ll be going anyway?
Perhaps she could take Maia home for tea afterward too—their girls don’t know one another that well, but they live nearby, are the same age; it can’t be that much of an imposition, can it?
If she can keep Maia out of the house until seven, that would give her half an hour between Gordon getting home from the practice and Maia arriving back.
When they get in, Cora parks the sleeping baby in the hallway, fixes Maia a snack, then makes the phone call.
The pool is closed. But Mehri offers—Cora doesn’t even have to ask—to have Maia over for tea with Fern instead.
And for a moment this gives her some confidence, as though this small piece of the jigsaw fitting so neatly into place is a sign that things might be okay.
She goes into the bathroom and piles her damp clothes into the laundry basket, changes her underwear, and pulls a clean top from the drawer as she thinks through what to do with Bear.
And despite her anxiety, she realizes she has thought of him as Bear effortlessly, as though this has always been his name.
As though he’s just been waiting to slip into it, and now only needs her to make it real—to break the news to Gordon—and this drives her on.
She wonders how she might keep Bear safe.
Considers stringing out his milk, so that by six she can feed him into that state of slack-armed slumber where she can safely lower him into the Moses basket without him waking.
But then what? She goes to the closet, starts to move shoeboxes from the floor, stacking them out of sight beside the chest of drawers.
When the space is big enough, she swipes away dust with the side of her hand, then fetches the little bed and positions it in the cupboard to check it fits.
She sees the madness in what she’s doing.
He wouldn’t hurt their baby, would he? But because of Cora’s moment of impetuousness, Bear’s existence is now a personal affront to Gordon and his family.
She can almost hear his voice. My son? Bear?
Have you lost your mind? No, she thinks, as she moves things into place around the basket, she must keep him safe.
She runs a finger down the narrow gap between the closed doors but can’t judge how much air it might let in, so she opens them again, steps into the Moses basket, and shuts herself inside the closet.
There is a line of vertical light, and when she puts her eye to it, she sees a slice of bedroom.
She stands, sinking into the darkness, observing this sliver of her own life from a new angle.
The bed she shares with Gordon, its floral duvet cover a wedding gift chosen by his parents.
Twin nightstands. Just a clock on her side.
A lamp, a notepad, a stack of books on his.
She realizes there is nothing of her own self impressed on this space, no trace of her physical presence.
Really, there is only the feeling of her hanging over the stillness of the room.
She hears the muffled sound of Bear beginning to stir in his pram, but before she’s opened the closet doors, she hears Maia go to him, her voice soothing, cajoling him from crying out.
Cora imagines her unzipping his snowsuit and carefully lifting his warm body out, and when she can no longer hear them, she decides Maia must have taken him through to the living room.
Cora stays a while longer in the cupboard, feeling as though she has temporarily stepped out of her own life and pressed pause.
At six-thirty, Cora hears Gordon’s key in the lock.
She thinks she may be sick. She moves through to the hallway, where he greets her, kisses her cheek, and hands her his suit jacket.
She brushes her fingers across the warm grain of the fabric before hanging it up, wanting to slow everything down, to feel these tangible things, to savor the moments when she can choose where to focus her mind.
She follows him through to the kitchen and, unable to continue holding the tension she’s been carrying all day, hears herself blurting out, “Gordon, I’ve done something.”
He turns then, leans back against the countertop, not taking his eyes from her, and she knows he won’t ask, will not help to draw it from her. He loosens his tie, not dropping his gaze. And when she speaks, she hears herself as he will: pathetic, weak.
“I went to register the birth like you asked, and I—I hope you won’t mind, but I’ve called him something else. Not Gordon. You know I’ve never really wanted to call him that and I—I—”