Page 109 of Salty Pickle

This is weird.

There’s a knock at the door. “Everything okay with Matilda? I heard a crash.”

I lean through the gap in the shower wall. “She knocked over a lamp. Careful of the glass.”

“Do you want me to get her?”

I look down at the goat. She peers up at me like I’m the greatest thing on earth.

“I don’t think she’ll come.”

Lucy opens the door, her eyebrows lifting when she spots me and the goat in the shower. “This is not a sight I ever expected.”

“Goat infidelity. Guilty.”

Finally, she smiles. “Let me get some bribes.”

Matilda and I wait, wet and, I guess, both naked, until Lucy returns with an apple and a lead.

Matilda hesitates, but the lure of the treat is too strong. Lucy pops the lead on her and uses the apple to walk her out of the bath.

I hope this means things are better between us.

33

LUCY

Things don’t go back to the way they were before our fight, not quite. Court and I spend Sunday arranging the baby’s room and putting clothes away in the dresser.

There are signs that he’s different. When I find a checklist online of baby items and realize we’re missing many of them, he’s more resigned than eager to place the order. It’s completely different from how he acted at the store.

I ask him to play the video of the baby’s sonogram, but the gleam isn’t in his eye anymore when we watch it.

Finally, at dinner, I ask him if there’s anything more than the problem with Matilda.

At first, he puts me off, stuffing his face with pasta rather than answer.

But I persist.

Eventually, he opens his phone to a website about paternity testing and slides it over to me.

I pick it up. “What’s this?” But as I read, I get it.

There’s a blood test you can take at any point. And I just did a blood draw.

“You think I’m trapping you without knowing the baby is yours.” It’s not a question. I slide the phone back.

He doesn’t respond, but this time, he doesn’t eat to avoid talking. He pushes his plate away.

I don’t feel like food, either.

“Court, I didn’t know about that test. I wish I had. We’d have the results by now, and none of this would be an issue between us.”

His expression hardens, and I realize more damage has been done than I thought.

My voice cracks when I ask, “How can you be like this?”

Finally, he speaks. “I’m not like anything. I’m here. You’re here. The goat’s here. The baby’s coming. Nothing will change between now and then.”