Page 71 of Salty Pickle

She scoots the plate closer to me.

I take both of them to the sink to rinse them.

She keeps sitting at the table. I don’t normally do anything with my dishes. I have so few of them that I leave them for Maggie to handle. I’m not even sure how to turn the dishwasher on.

There’s salad in the bowl and casserole in the dish. I should cover them with something and store it. Plastic wrap? No, Lucy will protest. I should have aluminum foil. Maybe.

Lucy walks over. “I’ll handle this.”

“There are no gender roles here.”

“No, but there’s competence and incompetence.”

I’m about to make a gruff retort, but I stop myself. She’s right. “I don’t eat here very often. But my mother made us wash dishes. I know how to do that.”

“Good.” She turns on the water and closes the drain. “Find a clean dish towel, and you can dry.”

I open drawers, relieved we’ve found our way beyond another impasse.

Life sure looks different from what it was a week ago.

I guess I can make some sort of effort.

21

LUCY

Istruggle to fall asleep that night, thinking over the moment when I triggered Court to abruptly end our conversation at dinner.

I should have known that asking what makes him salty isn’t equivalent to him asking what made me vegetarian. But I suspect the answers are equally deep.

My family hurt me. They never saw me for who I was. My dad, in rejecting his mother, rejected me. Even marrying my mom was thumbing his nose at everything his parents had stood for. And that doesn’t even touch what he did to BeeBee’s farm.

It’s why I chose Court over them. Besides, Dad knows lots of lawyers in his business, and my greatest fear of all is that if they decide their grandbaby would be better off with them, they might find a way to take him.

Or her.

Lately, I’ve had dreams about a little girl. She likes to wear overalls and run barefoot in the grass. But when I place a crown of flowers on her head, the sun striking her light hair makes her look like a princess.

I wake up with a start. Something’s banging against the door.

There’s a snorting sound.

That’s not Court.

“Matilda?”

Eh heh heh.

It is Matilda!

I throw open the door.

Matilda is there, not wearing a diaper.

“That’s risky inside,” I say and lead her into my room. I snatch up the liner and diaper set that dried overnight in my bathroom and strap it on.

Then I sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her in my goat T-shirt and yoga shorts rolled below my belly. “What are you doing inside?” I ask her.

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