At least I don’t think they can.
Cara stares at me for a moment, then says slowly, seeming to choose her words with care, “This isn’t my decision to make, but I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it anyway, so I guess it’s good that you’ve brought it up.” She sighs. “I’m sorry, Abby, but Kroger is having some layoffs. You know what the economy is like.” She shakes her head sorrowfully. “It’s a case of first in and first out, especially when it comes to the part-time employees.”
I swallow hard. “So I’m being fired?” Would I have been if I hadn’t forced this conversation?
“Management will contact you officially, but you are being laid off, yes. Your final day of work will be in the letter they send, sometime in the next week or so.”
I let out a huff of breath, hardly able to believe this conversation has happened the way it has. If I hadn’t approached Cara, would I have just gotten a letter in the mail? It appears so. “Okay, well.” I swallow hard. I’m not sure what to say. “I guess that’s that.”
Cara cracks her gum again. “That’s that,” she agrees, and turns back to her computer.
I head back to my checkout counter feeling weirdly numb. I can’t believe I just lost my job. Our bank account balance feels more precarious than ever.
I’m still thinking about my job, or lack of it, as I head back home seven hours later. My feet and lower back are both aching, and my stomach is feeling achy. I acknowledge with a sigh that standing on my feet for seven hours is not the best job for a forty-four-year-old pregnant woman. Still, I need to find some kind of work—but who is going to hire a woman in my current condition?
Back at the house, I discover that Bethany has moved all her stuff into the middle of the kitchen, a pile of boxes and suitcases she has yet to take to the car. Max has been made anxious by thechange of circumstances—he’s easily upset—and is circling the pile while whining.
William is sitting at the kitchen table, frowning at his laptop. The kittens are on top of the kitchen counter, along with what looks like half a box’s worth of spilled Cheerios. My temper starts to fray.
“Is it too much to ask,” I state with a definite edge to my voice, “to clean up after yourself?” I right the box of Cheerios and shoo the kittens off the counter. They jump elegantly to the ground, both of them giving me a malevolent look, only the way a cat can.
Max upgrades his whine to a near-howl.
We definitely have too many animals.
“I didn’t have Cheerios,” William says, his tone so reasonable, but I’m not in a reasonable mood.
“And when you see all this cereal spilled over the counter,” I snap, “you don’t think about cleaning it up?”
William blinks at me. I know I’m sounding alittleunhinged, but couldn’t he have cleaned it up? Or am I the only one who does any tidying in this home?
I know I’m being unfair. William got up this morning to do the milking, and Jack has been helping Josh outside most days. He’d much prefer that to homeschooling, and he’s been helpful. Even Rose has risen to the occasionoccasionally, emptying the dishwasher and cleaning out the chicken coop. My kids do way more chores here than they did back in New Jersey, and yet…
No one thought to clean up the Cheerios. And I’m out of a job.
“What are you doing, anyway?” I ask, nodding toward his laptop. He’d been studying whatever is on that screen very seriously.
“Um, nothing.” Quickly, he closes the laptop, and I frown.
“What kind of nothing?” I ask as lightly as I can. If William is going through something, I’m not sure I currently have the emotional energy for it, but I know I need to ask.
“Well—” William begins, only to be silenced by the sound of the front door being open and Josh singing out,
“Guess what I brought home!”
This is followed by a sound that takes me a second to recognize—the squeal of a pig.
Chapter nine
William’s eyes widen, then he scrambles up from the table. I make a mental note to continue our conversation another time as I follow him into the living room. Josh is standing in the doorway grinning, a squealing piglet under each arm, both of them wriggling and looking decidedly alarmed.
“Josh…” I am incredulous. “What are you doing withpigsin the house? Get them outside!” I demand.
He laughs. “Pigs are actually very clean animals,” he informs me.
I shake my head. “That doesn’t mean you keep them in your living room.”
“True enough,” he agrees affably, clearly buzzing from having finally bought the pigs he’s wanted for a while. One more step toward self-sufficiency. “Don’t worry, I’ll take them out back.” He proceeds to march through the entire house while the piglets keep up their litany of alarm, and I do, too.
