“I said I was going to bring dinner home.”

“Two hours ago, yes.”

“What should I do with the pizzas, then?”

“Do whatever you want.”

“Should I freeze them?”

“Do what you want.”

“I don’t want to fight. Just tell me what to do with them.”

“And I said you...”

Emma fell silent. Her face, which had just looked so exhausted, suddenly distorted into an expression of excruciating pain. Her body doubled over and she grabbed the back of a chair, bending over it and screaming, “Ohhhh... Ahhhh!”

Henrik leaped forward, putting his arms around her, but she couldn’t let go of the chair.

“What’s going on? Tell me what’s happening!”

“My belly,” she said through clenched teeth. “It hurts so much, so, so much!”

“Is it time? Is it already time? Should we go to the hospital?”

“No, it doesn’t usually feel like this. It... Ahhhh!... I don’t know what it is, it hurts so much. Please, Henrik...help me!”

* * *

It had been a long workday. When Anneli Lindgren opened the front door she could tell that Gunnar was already home and probably fixing dinner, maybe potato pancakes or pan-fried salmon.

Memories of their past flooded her thoughts. She thought back to when it had only been her and him, without children, without their son, Adam, when they were newly in love and just beginning to discover each other, when the first nervous sentences had come out of his mouth, saying that he was in love. And then the first dinner, and when he later had embraced her, taken her, and they had eaten chips in bed, and then they’d had each other again. Everything had been completely new and such a very long time ago.

She lined up the shoes in the hall before going into the kitchen.

Gunnar sat at the table with a glass of whiskey and an open can of corn in front of him. He hadn’t laid out any silverware or plates. The fish lay fried in the frying pan, the burner was off and the tomatoes sat uncut on the cutting board.

“Why weren’t you at the meeting?” she asked. “Did something happen?”

“I don’t know, did it?” he asked quietly, pulling the can of corn closer. He looked at the contents for a moment. Then he picked up one kernel of corn at a time and dropped them into the whiskey. He paused briefly between each one.

“Why are you doing that?” Anneli asked.

“I’m counting.”

“What are you counting?”

“Years.”

Anneli smiled in bewilderment.

“Years?”

“Yes.”

“What years?”

“Guess!”

Anneli tried to smile again, but an uneasy feeling began to creep into her chest.

“Ten,” Gunnar counted, continuing to drop corn into the glass. “Eleven, twelve...”

Whiskey splashed onto the table.

“Eighteen, nineteen...”

She saw that he held his hand over the glass, held it there a long time before dropping the last kernel.

“And twenty.”