34. Court
34
COURT
I ’m useless all day Monday. Devin sees it. The merch team sees it during our staff meeting.
Afterward, Dawn approaches. “Is everything okay with Lucy?”
I refuse to confess anything. “What makes you think anything’s wrong?”
She waits until the other employees filter out of the room. “You don’t look good. I know the Friday party had its… unexpected moments. And I thought maybe you and Lucy?—”
“Well, you thought wrong. And maybe you should get your boss out of your thoughts all together.” I snatch up my folder and quickly cross the room.
“Mr. Armstrong,” Dawn calls. “You were better, and now you’re not. If something’s going wrong with Lucy, you should fix it before the baby comes.”
I refuse to acknowledge her little speech. What-fucking-ever.
When I’m back in my office, I fling the folder on my desk. It opens and papers scatter across the top, a few of them sailing through the room.
I’m reminded of the first day Lucy was here, when Matilda unexpectedly jumped on my desk. I scoot pages aside and find the scratches where her hooves dug in. My dining table looks about the same.
Offices and New York high rises are no places for a goat. But I have no solution for this. Devin looked into it, and there’s a city ordinance against farm animals. Nobody can keep one permanently on the island.
The only way we can keep the goat for the long-term is to move outside of Manhattan.
I’ve got him searching for a place. See if there’s anything that will work.
People commute from the boroughs all the time. I did it at first until I managed to rent this place. Real estate in Manhattan is hard to come by.
I hated every minute of that train ride. And to get far enough out to have a yard or green space would be even farther. I can’t remote in or work from home. I’m the boss.
This is a crazy sacrifice for a damn goat.
Although, I guess, technically, it’s for Lucy.
My head pounds. I head to the sidebar and pour a glass of chilled water. I don’t know what to do. I want to believe her. I want happily ever after for all three of us. But I don’t see how.
Devin knocks, then enters. “I have a list of rentals with spaces that could accommodate the goat and have a line in to the city. You’re looking at a pretty incredible commute. You might consider keeping your apartment and getting a second place for the weekends.”
“A cozy family two days a week?” I flip through the pages.
“Maybe better than none?”
“Maybe.” He’s right. These are far. It doesn’t make any sense to try commuting every day. I could finish out the lease, then get something smaller in the city. See Lucy and the baby on weekends.
This sucks.
Devin holds up another file. “I got the report from the outside firm looking into company morale. They have several recommendations, from compensation restructuring to leadership retreats.”
Right. I still have that problem. “Thanks.”
Devin pauses by the door. “You can’t ask her to give up her goat, you know.”
“I know.”
“But it’s possible her priorities will rearrange once the baby is here.”
“You think so?”
He shrugs. “Babies are kind of a big deal. She might be willing to board the goat somewhere once the family dynamic shifts.”
“The goat is pregnant, too.”
Devin’s mouth makes a big “O” shape. Then he’s gone.
I feel paralyzed by this problem. I can’t hire a nanny in the city if she’s going to work an hour away, God knows where. We have to figure this out.
I close my eyes and remember my grandfather’s shop. There was a fence in the yard where we would run with the dogs when the weather was nice. Grandpa would open the side door and let them run in and out of his workspace.
Once we even whittled the likeness of Banshee, a husky who loved to howl. Grandpa used it as the decorative top of a walking stick.
We could have had a goat there. She could run the fenced area. We could have expanded it. That’s the thing about Colorado that Manhattan will never rival. All the open land. Mountains. Woods. Nature runs wild.
I consider texting Lucy several times during the day but end up putting my phone down, unsure what to say.
On the way home, I stop by the flower shop and grab a new bush for Matilda and flowers for Lucy. I’ve never bought her flowers. I’m smart enough to get live ones in a pot, not clipped ones. I’m sure she has feelings about that.
I practice opening lines in the elevator.
“Lucy, I have some options for us. Let’s talk about them.”
“Lucy, I think we can figure this out.”
But when I make it inside, I instantly know something’s wrong. There’s an emptiness about the place.
I forget my rehearsed lines. “Lucy?” I set down the plants. “Lucy? Are you okay?”
Images of her on the floor, passed out, race through me. I run to the kitchen. The guest room. The baby room. My bedroom.
She’s not here.
I circle back to the balcony.
Matilda is gone.
I turn to the kitchen. The Dutch oven I used for her water is cleaned and upturned on a dish towel to drain.
The compost pot is cleaned out, too.
I open the pantry. My groceries are there but not the spices and flavorings for her goat cheese.
I race to the guest room and open drawers. Her clothes are gone.
Shit, shit, shit!
I hurry to the baby’s room.
Here, everything looks the same. The swing, the bassinet, the changing table. I open drawers. They might be slightly emptier, but I don’t remember everything we bought.
Then I see her phone.
And the locket.
She left those.
I pick up the phone. The lock screen of Matilda is still active.
I don’t know her passcode.
So, I have no way of reaching her. To figure out where she went.
She’s just… gone.
I sit on the edge of the bed, the chain of the locket cool in my hand.
She left me.
Where could she have gone? Who would have taken her in?
She has less than a week until the baby is due.
I stand. Did she go into labor? Maybe left by ambulance?
Then I sit down again.
No, the goat is gone.
She took Matilda with her. She took the things she needed.
I wasn’t one of them.