Flying the Nest by Belinda Rowe
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
The mother writes a note for her family giving them her new address: Artemis Hardware
Store, South Street. She tells them she’s purchased it. The father goes back to reading the
newspaper, the children look at one another then drive straight to the hardware store. It’s shut up like a clam, the sign says ‘Closed’. They bang on the big roller door.
What’s going on? they demand.
I’m camping in aisle seven with the spades and the sequiturs, the wheelbarrows and the
hoses, the mother yells.
But why? they howl.
Hardware is great company, hardware makes me laugh, we have a good rapport, a gentle
camaraderie. This has been a long time coming.
The children wince. They can hear her singing and sawing and hammering.
What are you making? they holler.
I’m rebuilding my life, she whispers.
From now on, the mother cooks what she wants; lasagne be damned; three hours to chop,
slice, sauté and bake, wolfed in mere minutes? She forages in the garden section for lettuce
and rocket.
When she wakes insomniac, she toils, rakes, mulches, grows her own food: sweet potato,
broccolini, tomatoes, tamarillo, blood oranges. The garden grows before her eyes – tendrils
climb bamboo stakes, leaves unfurl, trees broaden. She befriends garden snails and rain
moths, moves her swag under the stars, looks for Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri. She leans into the soft rustling of quokka and quenda, feeds them blueberries and almond milk, they speak to each other in a language of squeaks and chuffs – they have a shared understanding.
When it rains, the mother relocates to aisle twenty-six to work on her sculpture, a seventeen-
foot woman with a bow and arrow and a deer, carved from a solid block of Carrara marble.
She’s teaching herself how to wield point and tooth chisels, hammers, a trapano. She’ll chip,
chisel, refine; it took Michaelangelo three years to carve David.
Her children beg and plead, come home, we’ll clean, tidy, remain good-natured.
It’s too late, she says, I’ve already turned DIY.
As the sun dips, spotted pardalotes flit and bathe in granite birdbaths, misting the air. The
mother lights a fire in a brazier, unfolds her camping chair, carves a recorder from a carrot.
Author's Note:
I grew up in New Zealand on the banks of the Wairoa River and at West Shore Beach in Napier; I’m drawn to water, and nature. My main go-to places for self-care in Western Australia are Beeliar Wetlands where I wander with my dog through paperbark groves and banksia woodland. I also swim and practise yoga and have saunas with friends. Writing is also self-care, I can get lost for hours and I’m part of an amazing writing group. Family, friends, food, animals, gardening, reading, music, film and travel are integral to my self-care. Sometimes I like to sit for a few minutes doing absolutely nothing — maybe there'll be a cat on my lap or a dog nestled close.
Belinda Rowe is an emerging short fiction writer and English teacher. Born in Aotearoa (NZ), she now lives in Walyalup (Fremantle), Western Australia. She has words published in Gone Lawn, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Ghost Parachute, Lost Balloon & Fictive Dream. She was a SmokeLong Quarterly Emerging Writer Fellow for 2025.
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