Chapter_18

In the frozen dark of the barn the next morning, Rosie found a rake, a shovel, and a bucket. She’d beat Hank there by half an hour. With the help of Google Images and the flashlight on her phone, she found the row of dust baths in the dark. She raked and scooped them, removing unidentifiable clumps. The dust billowed up and made her eyes water.

By the time Hank’s truck pulled up the driveway, the sky had lightened. He flipped on the buzzing fluorescent barn lights and, seeing Rosie, stood for a moment, absorbing her presence. “I didn’t realize you were coming in early.”

Rosie wiped her eye with her shoulder. “I wanted to take care of the dust baths, like you mentioned yesterday.”

Hank sighed. “I wish I’d known you were going to do that. I could have slept in a little longer. But that’s OK.” He scratched the back of his head. “Go ahead and load up the truck for deliveries.”

Silently she emptied the freezers of vacuum-sealed chickens, filling the coolers. The wind thrashed, pushing her hair in all directions. The crates were so heavy she had to set them down every few steps on her way to the truck. By the time the truck was loaded, her arms felt like jelly. “All set,” she said, turning around, but Hank had disappeared inside the barn.

She climbed into the truck and let out a cry of relief when she got it to move and turned the corner into the clear, bright morning. Each curve in the road took her by surprise. Animals lurched onto the highway, as if to test her. Her service cut out, and she made a series of wrong turns that led her onto an unfamiliar highway.

Finally she made it to the general store, where Sasha was behind the counter, reading a hot-pink zine titled My Wife’s Wife.

“Hi,” Rosie said. She tried and failed to lift a crate of chickens onto the counter.

Sasha watched her struggle. “Do you need help?”

“No, no,” Rosie said, panting slightly. She slid an invoice across the counter, and as Sasha signed it, the doorbell jangled. Rosie looked up to see their broker. She wore a mechanic’s uniform and moved around the store as though she worked there, eventually joining Sasha behind the counter, pulling her in by her waist and kissing her cheek. “Hey, beautiful,” she said.

Rosie waited for the broker to recognize her. “Hi,” she said, taking back the invoice. “I’m not sure if you remember me.”

“Remember you? Of course I remember you. I’ve never tried so hard to stop someone from buying a house.” She took a step back to take Rosie in. “And now look at you, working for Hank! Is the house still standing? Who’s your contractor?”

“We don’t have one yet.”

The broker stared at her, then glanced at Sasha. “Well, you all know where to find me, when you’re ready. It’s Callie.” She stuck out her hand.

“I remember,” Rosie said.

Driving home, she was overcome by defeat. She pulled off to the side of the road to look at the mountains, trying to regain a sense of peace. But she did not feel anything besides a vague, terrible dread. She took a photo of the vista, redownloaded Instagram, and posted it with the caption My reward for an early-morning farm shift. Then she deleted Instagram, got back into the car, and called Alice.

“Everyone in this town is sort of mean,” Rosie said. “I just saw my broker, who essentially called the house a money pit. And my boss is worse than the Egg. He barely looks at me. Today I got to the farm early and raked chicken shit out of old tires full of dust and he acted like I ran over his grandma with my car.”

“Remind me again why you’re doing this?”

“We need the money,” Rosie said. “You’d be shocked to learn how expensive firewood is.”

“I meant more, like, this, as in moving up there. It doesn’t seem to be making you happy. Aside from your hot neighbor.”

“It’s just growing pains,” Rosie said.

“And don’t you, like, own trees?” Alice said.

“What?”

“For firewood.”

“It’s not that easy,” Rosie said. “Some wood is toxic to burn. Anyway, we don’t know how to split firewood, let alone cut down a tree.” She pulled into the driveway and parked the car. Dylan leaned against the guinea hen coop, which was now fully framed. It was a transparent structure, like a line drawing of a house. A hammer hung from a loop on her work pants. Rosie tried to ignore the effervescent feeling in her chest. In the same moment that she waved and smiled, Dylan looked down at her phone and lifted it to her ear, oblivious to her.

“I gotta go,” she said to Alice.

“Go, go,” Alice said. “Tend to ye olde fireplace.”

That evening, Jordan prepared skirt steak with chimichurri and small red potatoes. They ate in front of the TV. Their favorite couple on the reality show was arguing about whether the man’s habit of disposing of his dental floss in the toilet was bad for the plumbing in the woman’s condo. In the end, she admitted that she simply thought it was gross, and he said he wished she’d just said that from the start.

“You know who I saw today at the general store?” Rosie said.

“Who?”

“Callie.”

“Callie...”

“Our broker. She came in, and Sasha—the mother of the toddler—was working. And they were really affectionate with each other. They actually—they kissed.”

“Wait,” Jordan said, muting the show. “The mother of the toddler is kissing Lark and kissing our broker?”

“Yes!”

“Is our broker the other mom of the kid?”

“I have no idea.”

“I’m sorry, but is everyone in this town gay and poly? Did we miss a memo? Are they all together?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you say hi?”

“Kind of. Their vibe was just...”

“Really mean?” Jordan said. “Because I feel like everyone I talk to here hates us. I thought people outside of the city were going to be friendlier.” He took her feet onto his lap and massaged them.

“Do I have a terrible personality?” Rosie said.

Jordan laughed. “No! Why would you say that?”

“I feel like Hank wants to put me upside down in a cone and slit my throat.” Her eyes began to prickle.

“I hate that image,” Jordan said. He cupped her chin with his hand. “I have some good news.”

“Is it that you’re secretly a farmer and can show me how to quickly and mercifully end the life of a chicken?”

“No. I took some freelance work for GoldenDrop. Reviewing product liability documents. So that’ll bring in a few grand, which should tide us over for a while. Bridey said there could be more of that if I wanted it, so that takes a little pressure off me and Noguchi.”

“You’re—what? You worked that out with Bridey? You’re working for GoldenDrop?”

“Not for GoldenDrop. Just a job here and there. This is good news! You can quit your nightmare job and focus on what you really want.”

“No,” Rosie said. “This is exactly what I was talking about. This is, like, stage one in your mom’s ultimate plan of getting you closer to her.” She covered her face with a palm.

“Ultimate plan?” Jordan laughed. “You make her sound like a supervillain. Anyway, that’s not what I want. I’m excited about what Noguchi and I are working on. That’s where my focus is. This is just for cash, to make it through. And you can quit the chicken thing!”

“I don’t want to quit.”

“What? Why in the world not? It sounds like torture. Killing chickens and chauffeuring their vacuum-sealed bodies all over town?”

“I cannot let myself fail at another job. I just can’t.”

“OK,” Jordan said. He rubbed his face. “I’m sorry. I thought you would want to. And I—I feel like we haven’t been able to really connect lately. And I miss having mornings with you.” He wrapped an arm around her and kissed the side of her head.

“I just want to do something useful,” Rosie said. “I feel like if I could get really good at something, I could find my purpose in life.”

“Your purpose,” Jordan said, “can just be to be happy. You don’t have to break your back. This app—it’s going to be really good. We’ll be back where we used to be in no time.” He kissed her cheek. “Don’t cry.”

The episode had moved on to the credits. “Do you mind if we go back a few scenes?” he asked, picking up the remote. “I really need to see this floss situation resolved or I’m not going to sleep.”

Rosie settled against his chest. She closed her eyes, listening to the contestants. “I just don’t think I can move forward with this marriage,” the woman said to the cameras. She wiped a tear with a knuckle. “It’s about more than just floss.” But she didn’t say what the “more” part was.

“I don’t get it,” Jordan said. “What does that mean?”

“She’s crazy,” Rosie said, but part of her understood.