Page 119 of Salty Pickle

I pant my way to the hospital. “Call Court,” I tell Mom.

“Tell me his number,” she says. “We’ll get him told.”

But I still don’t know it.

“Pickles,” I try to say.

“You want pickles?” Mom asks.

“No…” I grip the door handle, unable to say anything more as I ride out the pain.

“I ate so many pickles when I was pregnant with you,” Mom says. “You can’t eat until they assess you. But we’ll get you some as soon as we can.”

I want to correct her, to tell her no, he works at Pickle Media.

But every pain grips me with an unnatural terror. It’s hard. And it hurts.

We arrive at the hospital, and Dad rushes around to my door to help me out.

I’m loaded into a wheelchair and taken to a room. It all happens quickly: the changing, the exams, the discussions, the plan. They call my original doctor, then the one in Warwick, then decide they don’t need the records, really, as I’m progressing.

And then they give me an epidural, and all is well.

I’ll just sleep right through this childbirth…

36

COURT

At first, I try to find Lucy. Where could she have gone? Back to her yurt, somewhere, anywhere in Colorado?

I call the spa to see if she arranged for future goat milk. Kaliyah hasn’t talked to her in a week. Stanley either.

On Tuesday, I stalk her old Facebook. I message her there, even though I know it’s futile. She hasn’t logged in for years and probably doesn’t have a way to do it now.

Her old friend list is hidden, but I find comments from people named Summer and April on her account. These are the only friends she’s mentioned. I write them, but they seem to have abandoned the platform, too.

I get on LinkedIn and find a chef with April’s name, but I don’t get a response there, either. Summer is nowhere and her full name, Summer Jones, is so common that I can’t easily search for it.

Work is worse than ever. I have no desire to talk to anyone, not even Devin. I insist he message from outside my office and leave me the fuck alone.

On Wednesday, Dawn shows up with samples of the new merch, and I have to control myself not to throw her out. She scurries away as fast as possible. I cancel all other in-person meetings for the week, then on Friday, I don’t even bother to go in. Pickle Media can run without me.

The baby’s room is making me crazy, so I start packing it all up to donate.

I’m in the middle of that when Rhett texts me.

Rhett: The whole family is talking about you.

Court: Like I give fuck all.

Rhett: Go ahead and be your asshole self with me. I get it. But do you want help or not?

Court: What would you do exactly?

Rhett: I don’t know. Did you hire an investigator to find her? Where do you think she went?

Court: No clue. I didn’t jailbreak her phone, but she was talking to her two friends before she left. She said so.

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