Page 17 of The Goat Next Door

“Whatever you say,” she chirps, a tiny, playful glint in her eyes as she leans casually against her newly acquired broom.

⋆ ✦ ⋆

My house is quiet, smelling of the baked mac-and-cheese I just pulled out of the oven. The kitchen table is perfectly set—two plates, two cups, and Sophie’s favorite pink plastic fork.

Sophie is sitting across from me, her small legs swinging under the chair, thoroughly coating a piece of broccoli in ketchup.

I watch Sophie eat, a heavy, familiar sense of relief settling over me.

This is my world. It’s predictable. It’s quiet.

And yet, I catch myself looking out the window toward the tree line, toward that disaster of a farm.

I know I’m going back there tomorrow. I’m going to spend my day off fixing a ceiling for a woman who probably shouldn’t be allowed to own a screwdriver, let alone attempt to fix a house.

“Daddy?” Sophie asks, wiping a smudge of ketchup from her cheek with the back of her hand.

“Yeah, bug?”

“Who was that pink lady?”

I pause, my fork halfway to my mouth. I take a slow bite, chewing deliberately as I try to figure out how to explain a human hurricane to a five-year-old.

“That’s Ember or Emmy,” I say carefully. “She’s our new neighbor. She just moved into the old farm next door.”

Sophie tilts her head. “Why was her truck so sparkly? Is she a princess?”

I can’t help the chuckle that escapes my chest.

“No, Soph,” I say, reaching over to wipe a stray drop of ketchup off her chin with a napkin. “She’s definitely not a princess. She’s just… a lot of work.”

“Are we gonna help her fix her house?”

“Yeah, bug,” I say. “I think we are.”

5

Ember

“I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m doing it loudly.”

— Ember

My back is currently a collection of screaming vertebrae held together by sheer willpower and a fine layer of lingering drywall dust.

I wake up to a beam of aggressive morning sunlight stabbing me directly in the left eyeball through the uncurtained, cracked window of the master bedroom.

I roll over, the springs underneath me letting out a high-pitched, metallic shriek, and reach for my phone. My fingers are still slightly stiff from yesterday’s walking tour of the county, but my thumb finds the Safari icon with professional, high-speed accuracy.

Luxury organic latex mattress. Italian linen bedding. Express white-glove delivery to rural zip codes.

I tap the screen with a series of frantic, violent jabs.

Five thousand four hundred dollars later, a confirmation screen pops up, complete with a little digital animation of green leaves fluttering around a delivery truck.

It will be here by Tuesday.

The company’s automated customer service bot assures me that their delivery team will carry it up the stairs, assemble the reclaimed white-oak frame, and dispose of the existing “historical mattress” without me having to lift a single, caulk-stained finger.