The Collector of Names

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She was watching her husband eat his soup when she suddenly realised she was pregnant. From the kitchen, she could hear the clattering of the dishes Greta was putting on the serving trolley. There was no tension in the air and she did not sense anything terrible was about to happen. A quiet family dinner: even the flames from the candles were almost still and the darkness in the corners of the dining room was undisturbed. The rhythmic sound of the splashing waves wafted through the half-closed shutters, lazily, slowly. There was no wind.

Her husband’s spoon waded through the liquid, pushing the soup away — maybe in the rhythm of the waves outside? — and she knew that he would sense her looking at him, pause, raise his head and smile at her. She waited for him, ready.

“I’m pregnant.”

The spoon stopped and waves of soup splashed over it. He smiled slowly and for a moment she felt sorry for him. Not for the whole of him, just for that slow widening of his lips in the early summer evening.

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