“Josh! Why are you— You could have taken them back outside thefrontdoor! How much did they cost, anyway?” I yelp as I follow him through the kitchen.
“How much did theycost?” Josh sounds baffled that I’m asking such a question. “Seventy-five dollars each. And in about six months, they’ll give us threehundredpounds of meat.” He glanced back at me, bemused. “I’d say that’s money well spent.”
“All right, but where are you going to keep them?” I ask as I follow him outside. Rose has come out of her room to investigate the commotion, and she is delighted by the arrival of yet more animals.
“Piglets!” she squeals, sounding much like the animals under Josh’s arms. “Can I name them? Please, pretty please?”
“Remember, they’re being butchered in a couple of months,” Josh warns her, and our eight-year-old daughter smiles beatifically.
“Don’t worry, I know.”
She named all forty of our meat chickens Nugget, so who knows what she’ll name these two pigs. Bacon? Sausage? I shake my head as Rose, William, and I traipse after Josh and the piglets to the barn.
“Jack and I built another stall in the barn this week,” Josh tells me. “Plenty of space.”
“WhereisJack?” I ask.
“He’s getting some supplies from the truck,” Josh tells me, and I realize way too late that if Josh went in the truck…
“Wait, youdrove?”
“Abby, it’s been a month since I got the cast off. Yes, I drove.” He sounds a little irritated, which I know is his way to hide his defensiveness. He isn’t supposed to drive for at least another two weeks.
I can’t help but notice that Josh is limping as he wrestles the two piglets into their pen while Rose hangs over the fence and coos at them. They are kind of cute, for pigs, anyway—speckled black with tiny snouts and cute, folded-over ears. AsJosh struggles with the gate, I glance pointedly at William, and he hurries to help.
“Wow, pigs, pretty cool, Dad,” he comments as he reaches for the gate, and Josh lets him, stepping back as he catches his breath. It’s clear that William has learned how to handle his father by not drawing attention to the fact that he’s helping him. “Is there more stuff to get from the truck?” he asks.
Josh’s forehead is beaded with sweat as he nods, wiping his brow with his sleeve. “Yeah, a trough and water barrel. You can help Jack. Thanks.” He claps William on the shoulder and then smiles at me. “I brought home the bacon!” he announces, and I try to smile back.
“You certainly did.” I glance at the piglets, breathing in the smell of hay and animal, then turn back to Josh. “Why don’t you come inside?” I suggest. I want him to sit down and rest, but also because I need to tell him about my job… or lack thereof. “I’ll make some coffee.”
“Coffee sounds good,” Josh agrees and starts limping toward the house.
“Keep an eye on those piglets,” I tell Rose, trying to sound cheerful. I’m still feeling grumpy as well as panicked, and I know I need to regulate my mood. I take a deep breath, resting one hand on my bump as I glance at Rose still cooing at the piglets, who are rooting around in their pen, snuffling in the corners, and sniffing everything with piggy grunts and yet more squeals. “Do you know what you’re going to name them?”
Rose tilts her face upward as she reflects on this weighty matter. “Maybe Wilbur and Peppa,” she says, which are not the mostoriginalnames, but better perhaps than the names of our chickens, the likes of which are Sparkletoes and Glitterina.
“Sounds great,” I say, and head inside just as William and Josh come into the yard, carrying all the pig-related supplies. How much, I wonder morosely, did allthatcost?
Josh is sitting at the table, his leg stretched out in front of him, looking pale, although his cheeks are flushed. “Before you say anything,” he heads me off as I go to fill the kettle, “Imayhave overdone it a little today, but I’ll rest up this afternoon and be fine. I’m tutoring anyway this evening, so I’ll just be on the sofa. I’ll be good as new by tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I say briefly. I don’t want to argue about that when the loss of my job is pressing on me, even though I am annoyed that he’s not taking his rehabilitation as seriously as I want him to.
Josh watches me set about making the coffee, a quizzical look on his face. “What’s wrong?” he asks finally, and I sigh.
“I got laid off from Kroger.”
He stares at me for another few seconds, still looking quizzical. “Okay,” he says at last. “I mean… no one likes being laid off, but, Abby… that’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
“Josh.” I turn to face him, my hands on my hips. Sometimes my husband’s deliberate insouciance exasperates me. “We need the money.”
His expression turns so compassionate, I struggle not to squirm. “Abby, you were making eight-seventy-five an hour,” he reminds me gently, as if I didn’t know the amount on my own paycheck. “A hundred bucks a week is not going to make or break us. I’m glad you got the job, and I think it was important to you that you were bringing something in, but…”
“It wasn’t worth it?” I fill in, a little resentfully. I want to argue that a hundred bucks is still a hundred bucks, and besides, it was one hundredtwenty, but I know he’s right. I slump into a seat, feeling defeated. If the best job I could get didn’t even make that much difference, what’s thepoint?
“Well, we don’t have a lot of money in the checking account,” I tell him.
“I moved a bunch into investments,” Josh reassures me. “The rest of what your dad so kindly gave us after the medicalbills were paid. And the investments are doing pretty well, as it happens.” He grins, clearly pleased with himself, although I don’t know why he didn’t tell me about all that earlier.
