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‘No, Johan. As far as I’m concerned, I’m perfectly sane. But also fed up with your mood swings. Which, in this case, are about deciding to bring a life into this world. So man up and let me know what your decision will be.’

His face turns crimson, his fists tighten next to his body as he takes a deep breath, then turns round and heads for the exit. ‘I’d better let you calm down.’

‘You can’t go back out in this weather.’ Shit, have I pushed too hard?

‘Watch me,’ he says, fishing his phone from his pocket and swiping the screen.

‘Johan, wait, we can…’

‘Hey.’

His calm voice is for the person on the other end of the line and is the total opposite to how he bangs the door shut, making the apartment shudder, like my whole world just shook. The noise hardly registers as my mind won’t leave the plastic stick in my hands with the outcome that, instead of being received as an unfair sentence, should have made both of us happy. Elated, actually. Isn’t a baby carrying the best of our features what we’ve been dreaming of for the last few months? Why all of a sudden is everything wrong? And why am I to blame?

Another bang, this one from outside, makes me flinch and squint at the canopy from the third floor. It’s like a green sea, complete with glimmers of silver, an angry, immense body, ready to swallow whoever defies its fury. Only now it dawns on me—it’s the code-red storm they predicted; its name forgotten. Much like the storm, my relationship started with clear blue skies.

I’m perched on one of the kitchen island’s high chairs. Uncomfortable, but they were here when I moved in a year ago. I guess my body got used to the discomfort, like it did to Johan’s temperamental behavior. I stare at the lightning in the distance, bracing for the thunder that’s about to come, that somehow sounds more ominous today.

‘It’s the hormones,’ I tell myself.

My voice is almost a whisper in the empty apartment that is getting darker as time passes, but I don’t get up to turn on the light. I just sit here, eyes glued to the windows overlooking the back garden, wondering whether the willow tree that leans precariously towards the neighbour’s shed in the garden below will survive another storm without causing damage, while my ears are pricked up for the sound of a key in the door—that never comes.

I’m about to go to the bathroom when my phone rings. I grab it, surprised it’s not Johan’s name on the screen but his sister’s. She has called me only once when their mother broke her arm and she couldn’t find him, so my stomach clenches, as if in warning.

‘Johan is dead.’

Her voice is cold, flat, as she delivers the news, as if announcing a random casualty, not unusual during such storms. She adds something about calling me back with information about the funeral, as if it’s someone else she’s talking about instead of her brother. When she hangs up, I’m left standing next to the chair, numb as if hit by one of the lightning bolts in the distance, while the words sink in slow motion, landing like rocks on the bottom of the sea.

The sickness makes me bolt to the bathroom, and I can’t tell whether it’s the first trimester or the news. What I know is that my life is about to change radically. And despite everything, I’m fiercely protective of the life growing inside me, seven months away, and somehow already close.

Dad answers Mom’s phone, and I go on alert mode. ‘Is everything okay?’

Interesting that I’m the one asking whether things are okay, given the devastating news I’m about to share.

‘Schat, I was about to call you. Mom is with a client.’ His calming voice tells me he knows.

‘You heard the news.’

‘I was scrolling to see what damage the storm caused, and…How are you, lieverd?’

‘I…don’t know.’

It’s true and it isn’t. I’m still trying to digest what happened, especially given the far from subtle way it was announced to me. Yet there’s sadness that’s started falling like a gloomy dusk. And there’s anger, too, for Johan’s recklessness. But the feeling that has been swelling inside me like a tide is relief. All this time, since Johan’s true self started emerging, it was as if I’d been on a marathon: running and running, only the prize would be pulled away from me every time I got closer. Now, I’m at the finishing line: exhausted, but able to let out an Oof!

After nothing ever being enough, me never being enough, there’s an end. I tell myself it’s the shock. I’ve hardly had time to process; I’m not such a terrible person, am I?

‘I’m here, my love!’ Mom says. ‘Your dad sent me the link.’

It’s endearing how we all tiptoe around the news, making sure to avoid the words Johan and dead, a stark contrast to how his sister launched it, as if wanting to harm me. It dawns on me I’m surprised she even offered to inform me about the funeral; and that I’ll actually meet his family under these circumstances—the person who was supposed to be our link gone.

‘We’ll be there in ten minutes,’ Dad calls.

The idea of them getting out of the house sends me into panic mode. ‘Don’t you dare! I’m okay!’

Guilt covers like an icy blanket when my own words meet my ears, because I realise I mean them. My shiver pushes a sob to the surface. My eyes burn as I look at the pregnancy test, the pink + flashing at me.

‘Baby?’ Mom’s voice is velvet soft.

It all bursts out at once. ‘I’m a shitty person, Mom! My partner was killed after we had a fight, and I’m relieved! A young person is dead, and all I can think of is that I’ll never be called chubby again! He’ll never get to meet his child, and I’m thinking he won’t get to intimidate or call him or her names. What kind of a person does that?’