Stay as Long as You Need

From outside, from the shop windows, it looks like any ordinary shop, with the products neatly organised. The prams are in one corner, because they are bulkier, and the cots too; there are tiny baby blankets you can’t resist touching, and blue and green pyjamas printed with dinosaurs and stars, and rubbery toys, and bibs and nappies, and all the things that you most likely have already bought for a friend’s baby, whether you were trying to be sensible at the time, and picked something useful, or wanted to be the fun auntie, even though your friend wasn’t your sister, but – you know – she thought you’d appreciate being called like that.

When you go inside, nobody will try to approach you and sell you something right away. Shop assistants will say Good morning and smile like they mean it, because they do, and they’re all well-mannered there. And because they took that extra class of customer care that everyone else skips in the other baby shops.
Nobody will ask you how far into the pregnancy you are, or when the baby is due. They won’t eye your belly, and they won’t judge, but they will look you in the eye, and they will say that you can stay as long as you need. They will offer you tea, and a cookie. You will walk around the aisles, touch the fluffy blankets, hold the cuddly toys, take the empty pram for a gentle spin. And when you are done, you will stop at the cashier and leave a little something, depending on how long you needed to stay. Because nothing is on sale at the Pretend Baby Shop. Because some things cannot be bought.

I wrote “Stay as Long as You Need” during Retreat West’s Friday Flashing, and I must thank Gaynor for the prompt. I also would like to thank my friends Denise, Eleonora, Fiona, Noémi, and Suzanne for their feedback, and last but not least Adrienne from CLOVES Literary, for giving it a home. Thanks also to Meg Pokrass for including this story in the 2023 Best Microfiction Anthology.