Anna’s legs turned to water and she sank to the floor, slumping back against the wall between the sink and the door. For a moment her mind was completely blank. She put one hand on her stomach and then felt foolish – as if there would be anything to feel. It couldn’t be more than six weeks old, this bundle of furtive nerves with the power to turn her life upside down.

The cold of the flags beneath her forced Anna to her feet. She got up and went out into the living room still dazed. She sat down on the sofa, rested her elbows on her knees, and put her hands over her face.

Pregnant.

Selkie lass,

We’re going to have to keep a really close watch on the wee lad. I caught him trying to go off to the dinghy on his own today. I got a call out right as we were about to go on dolphin patrol and told him to stay put until Barbara could get here and that patrol would have to wait, but then as I turned the car around I saw him sneaking out with his backpack. He said he couldn’t not check on the dolphin calf. I had to walk him right to Barbara’s door, just to make sure.

We’ve raised a kid too conscientious for his own good, that’s the trouble.

Keep an eye on him, won’t you? I’m not doing a good enough job on my own.

Twenty-One

‘Where are you? Hope you’re not avoiding me. Can’t imagine why you would be.’

Sunday morning, Cathy’s voice on her landline messages.

‘I haven’t spoken to you for what feels like ages,’ Cathy went on. ‘It’s all emails and texts. Come on, woman, give me a call. I want to know how the lunches went.’

Anna waited for the beep and then deleted the message before heading blearily for the kitchen. No sickness this morning, she noticed, just an underlying but bearable feeling of nausea. She stared through the little picture window over her sink as she filled the kettle. The sea was rougher today, streaks of azure and turquoise quilting together in a surf rolling endlessly towards her beneath the wind. She stood staring out at the shapes the waves made, curved and angular all at once, soothing to a mind exhausted by circular thinking and physical fatigue.

The answer to Cathy’s question was, very well. Her table had been full on both Friday and Saturday, and this time there had been no embarrassing interruptions from Douglas McKean. For Anna, lunch had passed in a pleasant bubble of activity and chat. She had floated through it all, confident in the bustle of kitchen work, enjoying the cushion that physical labour provided between theory and thought.