'Never ignore a flashing light' by Alison Wassell

The washing machine breaks the day we bring the baby home from the hospital. When I try to look up the error code you tell me to leave it all to you. I’m tired and sore, and sad that I haven’t got the hang of breast feeding yet, even though my mother told me it would be a piece of cake. But you’re not the practical type, so I say let’s phone my dad, he can fix just about anything. You look hurt and I feel bad. A plumber then, I say, and you say we’ll never be able to find one on a Sunday.

I say OK, we’ll worry about it tomorrow, even though I’m worrying about it now, worrying about how we’ll wash the baby’s clothes, what the health visitor will say if the baby has nothing clean to wear, whether she’ll think I’m an unfit mother, whether I am an unfit mother, and I’m so, so tired that I drift off to sleep for a couple of hours on the couch.

When I wake up a white van is pulling up outside with a new machine in it. I say we could have fixed the other one ourselves, it was probably something minor; a kink in the pipe, or the door not closing properly. You say things aren’t built to last these days; it’s called built in obsolescence. Much easier to buy a new one. I say I wasn’t raised to think that way. In my world, if something breaks, you do your best to mend it. You kiss the top of my head and tell me I’m so cute and old-fashioned and that it’s one of the things you love about me, but in my head, an error code is already flashing.