Page 110 of Salty Pickle

“But we’ve changed!” I stand from my chair. “It was wonderful. And now it’s not.”

He sighs. “It’s a tough situation.”

I pick up my plate and turn away. I don’t want to be next to him. “It was tough from the beginning.”

“But then we got a goat notice. Then we realized we had two pregnancies in the house. And you insisted we had to leave.”

He’s right. I did do that.

“And then you found out about the blood test,” I add.

“Look, we’re going through a lot.”

I open the pot I’m using to compost food waste and scrape my plate into it. “I know.”

“We can’t expect to be some perfect couple straight out of the gate. We barely know each other.”

I don’t want that to be true. I want to think that we are perfect. That the baby will have this beautiful family to be born into.

I knew it was impossible, but I still wanted it.

I should have gone to the library. I should have looked up paternity tests. I should have known what I was doing before I came to New York.

But I didn’t. I showed up, goat in tow.

My impulsiveness is catching up to me. My desperation.

“So, that’s it?” I ask. “We exist like this until the baby’s born?”

He sighs. “I don’t know how to fix all this. The goat. The apartment.”

Other people commute, but probably to get to farmland, it’s too far.

I came with problems. I came with impossibilities.

My messages with April and Summer keep popping into my head.

Call your family. They’ll help!

Salty bastard has money, doesn’t he? Will he use it against you?

I know how the test will come out, but I keep forgetting that he has to believe me for now. And that’s been shaken.

I open the dishwasher to have something to do.

“Maggie will get those,” Court says. “I’ve increased how often she comes to three times a week.”

“I can do it.”

“But very soon, it will get harder.”

I can’t stop him from bringing in Maggie. I should be grateful. I know it. But I feel like a leech. A lying leech with a baby, a goat, and a goat baby. Too many problems.

Not worth any of them.

I close the dishwasher. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

“Lucy…”

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