Tīhema Baker (Photo: Ebony Lamb)

Tīhema Baker’s new novel, One Day a Taniwha*, explores the pressures of new parenthood on Hepa, a public servant, and his wife Āniwa. This is an extract.*

When I got home later, Wī was already kicking off. Heard him from the street. Āniwa basically shoved him at me the moment I walked in the door.

“I just need a minute,” she said. Then she disappeared down the hallway.

It took 45 minutes, but we got there. Wī fell asleep in my lap while I read to him — the reo Māori version of Hairy Maclary, which was the only book he would allow. He was well gone by the time Āniwa poked her head through the living room doorway.

“How do you do it?” she whispered, easing herself into the couch next to me. She’d showered and got into her pyjamas already. “He’s been awake for hours, then you come home and . . . this.”

Gave my best shrug without moving Wī. “Honestly don’t know what I’m doing half the time,” I said. Āniwa laughed — just a little one, through her nose. It was nice to see her smile. “What did you guys get up to today?”

“Playgroup this morning. Mum came round for lunch, which gave me a good break. All fell to shit from there, really.”

“Par for the course, then.”

“Pretty much.”

Her head came to rest on my shoulder. Hair still wet, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d sat like that. The last time our bodies had touched for so long.

That was one of the hardest things about Wī entering our lives. I’d had Āniwa all to myself for years. My rock, my person. Now she was someone else’s. Someone who needed her more. Who would always need her more.

I loved how much she understood that — from the moment he arrived, it was like a switch went off in her, like she just knew what to do. How to hold him, sing to him, the type of material his clothes needed to be, how many layers he was supposed to wear. All of her being, poured into him.

Don’t get me wrong — he was my whole purpose now, too. Everything I did was for him. He was what I ran myself into the ground every day for. But he didn’t need me like he needed her. And she didn’t need me either. Not like she used to.

So I soaked up these moments. Āniwa’s touch, her hand in mine. Watching the sun fade, all quiet except for Wī’s snores, until the living room was dark and the cold began to set in.

“Think I’m gonna go to bed,” Āniwa yawned. “I’ll take bubba.”

“You sure? I could just stay here with him until he wakes.” Didn’t like the chances of him surviving a transfer from me to her, let alone a second one from her to the cot. More than that, I wished she’d stay just a bit longer.

“Yeah, all good,” she said. “If he wakes, I’ll deal with it. Get some kai — Mum left us a pasta bake.”

By some miracle, she managed to get Wī off me without waking him. A quick kiss goodnight, then she was gone.

Extracted from One Day a Taniwha by Tīhema Baker, published by Moa Press, RRP $37.99. Out now.

See also Tīhema Baker’s story about the personal experiences behind the novel.

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