HOW TO MAKE A HENRY

I am pregnant with Henry, my wife says, and I am surprised. We are not trying to have a child. She also looks surprised. I don’t know why I said that. She says. I just felt like it was true. In the night I dream of tiny kicks that come through her belly and land on my back. It feels like pitter patter pitter patter. Later my wife is awake and it starts raining while we are drinking our coffee. Pitter patter I repeat, of tiny feet, I say and my wife looks at me like what tiny feet?

There are many things I would like to do with Henry. I would like to teach him things the way one teaches things to a child. For example I would like to build a very small but accurate looking volcano and add vinegar to the baking soda we have put inside its depths and watch, with Henry, as it bubble-explodes out the top. I would listen to him yell as his excitement bubble-explodes out of him and then I would like to wait until he asks why? I would explain to him how everything reacts with other things, and that this is how our world works. He would think I was very wise and then he would become wiser than me.

I look at my wife’s belly and telepathically ask Henry, are you in there? Her t-shirt fabric rises and falls and I think to myself it is a bit like the movement of nodding. I think to myself how the mind is quite good at playing tricks. I wonder if my wife thinks about Henry.

My wife and I are watching a movie at home. We are tucked in together in bed and only our heads pop out above the blanket. I can not see my wife’s belly and I am not thinking about Henry until suddenly I am.

Would you like to make a Henry? I say to my wife.

Mmmm? She says because she is still watching the movie and all of us are talking at once.

Would you like to make a Henry? I say again.

This time she says I don’t know, would you?

I think about all the mistakes I could make which would lead Henry to hate me. I remember too, how I am sometimes not good at looking after myself. For example I have not made myself go to the dentist in 5 years now, even though everyone knows that you are meant to go every year. Also when I am tired I don’t make a proper meal. I eat cereal, dry and straight from the box, instead. Also I don’t wait for the green man when I cross the road. Also I sometimes still smoke cigarettes.

I don’t know. I say.

We watch the rest of the movie but really we are thinking about Henry together.

Sometimes we play a game where we imagine what Henry would look like. We make a puzzle out of each of us and rearrange the pieces. I put her nose in the middle because we like it better. We make the eyes brown and then green and then brown again. Then one of us will say he will have my anxiety or he will have my bad heart and once we start imagining things like this it is very hard to stop. On the back of the puzzle pieces, so the words remain hidden from the front, we write bad joints,  Alzheimer’s, high blood pressure, depression, cancer. This is where we get sick of playing the game. We put ourselves back together then, even all the bad bits. After, I ask do you want tea? But will seem to sound a lot like do you want Henry? I still make the tea anyway. I am very good at making tea. I know exactly what to do and I stop the kettle from boiling at the perfect moment so the water doesn’t get too hot and we can drink the tea before we forget about it. I do not know how to make a Henry.

It is morning and I am awake because I can hear my wife throwing up in the bathroom. Maybe it is Henry she says when I bring her a glass of water. We go together to buy a pregnancy test. We go through the self checkout aisle so that we don’t have to make conversation with anyone about Henry. At home the test stick feels light and cheap and plastic-y. My wife takes it with her to the bathroom and I sit down on the couch and then I stand back up again to look out the window. There is nothing happening outside the window but I feel like I am doing something and so I am comforted. My wife comes back and says well, it’s negative. I say oh. She says are you disappointed? I feel disappointed and not disappointed and so I say so. I ask her if she is disappointed and she cries but only a little bit and we are holding each other very tight without Henry.

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Kelsey Ipsen is a New Zealand born, France-based writer whose work can be found in Litro, Apt and elsewhere. Learn more at www.cargocollective.com/kelseyipsen