“Editorializing?” asks Assia with raised eyebrows and a smile, stacking the tiny saucers.

“Precisely,” says Ted, “though this sort of torrent occurs with more regularity than his initial one.”

The seat of Nicholas’s nightgown begins to radiate liquid warmth, followed by real damp blooming at the crook of Sylvia’s elbow. She reaches for a tea towel. She feels glum and irritable, her rattled weariness becoming something darker. Then she notices Frieda. Her eyes bright and eager, Frieda’s little pink hands are clasped at her chin, awaiting the next surprise. Sylvia goggles her eyes, making a silly face. Frieda convulses with laughter, stomping her feet on the floor.

“Speaking of the mysteries of nature,” Assia adds, now holding her manicured hand lightly over the stack of teacups to keep it from tumbling, “all of this natural glory embedded itself in my dream life. I was just telling Ted when you came downstairs, Sylvia.”

“It sounds very much like a pike—the coloring and mottled spots, and the spiky snout,” says Ted, leaning against the edge of the stove, a kitchen mitt in his hand. “Did it have striping on the fins and tail?”

“Yes, I don’t know—I don’t know anything about fish,” Assia says, “but it seemed so vivid and exact—”

“I was obsessed by pike as a boy; they truly had me in their thrall. I couldn’t get enough. I fished for them every day,” says Ted, turning to lift the steaming kettle off the stove. “I dreamt about them also. I wrote a poem about them once.” He fills the teapot, replacing the lid and leaving the tea to steep.

“It was the poem that hung on our wall at Chalcot Square,” Sylvia adds, rocking Nicholas, who is beginning to wriggle for a nappy change. Sylvia tries to soothe him, unable to tear herself from the exchange between her husband and this woman who, she increasingly senses, is fingering her life like so much yardage. “It’s in the parlor now; you probably saw it last night, Assia. Or read it before. It was published in Lupercal two years ago. You couldn’t miss it—it’s called ‘Pike.’”

“I don’t know,” Assia answers, holding one of Frieda’s teacups and absentmindedly stroking the smooth porcelain surface. “I don’t know anything about animals. But this was a long, muscular fish, green and gold, with a golden eye.”

“Certainly a pike,” Ted says, nodding at Assia.

“But what happened?” Sylvia asks hotly, just submerging her annoyance.

“Nothing really happened,” Assia answers, shrugging. “I dreamt of the fish—the pike—I saw it in great detail. Finally I saw that in its huge eye, this glittering, gold eye, was a baby. Curled up, pulsing and alive. And that was all.” Assia looks up, from Sylvia to Ted, still cradling the tiny cup.

Sylvia stares in disbelief. She tastes the pounding of her sleepless, tannic heart, squeezing in her chest.