{"id":308757,"date":"2026-04-06T07:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=308757"},"modified":"2026-04-02T17:13:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T21:13:44","slug":"surrender-by-jennifer-acker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/surrender-by-jennifer-acker\/","title":{"rendered":"A Goat Farmer Is Only as Vulnerable as Her Goats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An excerpt from Surrender<\/em> by Jennifer Acker<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I was a small child, my head the height of theirs, when I noticed the black parts of their eyes were shaped like shoeboxes. But I didn\u2019t know then that their rectangular pupils are adaptive. Goats take their meals on savannas or other wide-open spaces that leave them vulnerable to predators and the beating sun. Horizontal pupils let in less light from above and allow a wide field of vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living with five Nubians\u2014four does and a buck\u2014I witness how nimbly they manage difficult terrain and remain vigilant at the same time. Because a misstep can be fatal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The does greet me this morning by nibbling my flannel shirt, which I imagine tastes of woodsmoke and chicken broth. The barn smells of sweet-sharp hay, of pine dust, a wisp of ammonia that lets me know the straw bedding needs to be changed. It\u2019s the heart of winter, and I pull the girls close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The does are two months pregnant, so I\u2019ve stopped milking to allow the young mamas to build their strength and keep their vitamins, which they\u2019ll need to give birth to healthy kids come April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of people choose not to freshen does in their first fall, but I was impatient to grow my herd, to get a revenue stream going to stabilize the farm, and Judy said that as long as the girls were good sized and healthy, they\u2019d be fine to breed. I\u2019m thrilled every time I look at this burgeoning pack of curious females.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet it\u2019s my first time as a goat midwife. Can I really manage the upcoming births on my own? We have no money to hire a helper or to call the vet if something goes wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least I have Judy on speed dial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening the chicken coop, I let the birds loose and empty a bin of kale stems and squash rinds as an enticement to venture farther afield. Few eggs to collect this time of year, when the days are so short. The birds are healthy but they look horrendous, the runts and weaklings\u2019 backs picked clean of feathers. Their bare pimpled skin shames me, even though my father\u2019s hens looked the same, no matter what he did. \u201cLucy,\u201d he\u2019d tell me, \u201cthere you see the meaning of pecking order.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d planned a lot of indoor projects for the winter milking break, but that was before Michael lost our money and we needed immediate income. So today, instead of YouTubing a toilet fix, I\u2019ll be testing the endurance of my gluteal muscles, sitting on my flat butt at the Edin General Store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

I hear Michael calling me as soon as I take my boots off downstairs. He\u2019s perched on the side of the bed, eyes a faded brown, head bald, just a few stray tufts to the side. A birdlike Roman nose that anchors his still-handsome face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He tells me he wants to go for a ride in the new snow. He gestures out the window at the thick layer smothering the fields. We look together at the boot prints I\u2019ve made between the house and the barn. \u201cYou\u2019ve already been out in it,\u201d he says. \u201cNow it\u2019s my turn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only does he want to see the snow, but there are library books being held for him, and a bacon and egg sandwich at Franco\u2019s with his name on it. \u201cLet\u2019s go out for breakfast, bella. I\u2019ll read you the obituaries. You love the life stories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course I do, and I love it when he reads to me, but we don\u2019t have enough time for an outing. I offer to run out and pick up the books and the sandwich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no. He wants to get out of the house. His voice is both firm and pleading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changing his own socks into thicker woolens and wedging shoes onto his swollen feet can stretch to a quarter hour. Then getting his arms into each sleeve of a parka, plus scarf and hat. The driveway has been plowed but there\u2019s still a slick of ice, and I shiver just thinking about leading him across it to reach the passenger door, then holding the full weight of his seventy-nine-year-old, six-foot frame to transfer him into the depths of the car seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t want him to feel a burden, and I don\u2019t want to pity him, so I tell him simply that we don\u2019t have time. I\u2019m due soon at the store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This does not sit well. Michael’s forehead reddens and the corners of his mouth press down. He repeats his desire for an egg sandwich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In case what he really wants is to be doted on, I say, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you come into the kitchen, I\u2019ll fry you eggs and toast, and you can admire the snow from there. See if there are any deer in the back field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re just being selfish,\u201d he mutters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pause, startled. These short, angry flares are new and I\u2019m not yet used to them. They\u2019ve arrived in the wake of the giant loss Michael incurred, which has thrown me back into the vexed center of my parents\u2019 financial strain. We always had enough, but there was no fat in the budget, and Mom and Dad never once took a vacation longer than a three-day weekend, or pricier than an unelectrified lakeside bungalow. I have, it seems to me today, simply given up city comforts for the quaintly beautiful privations of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

I shower quickly, warmed by the hot water if dismayed by the rusting tub. I emerge with a soothing voice and suggest to my husband that I put on a movie. Make popcorn. We have a complete library of Gilbert and Sullivan and he chooses The Pirates of Penzance<\/em>. \u201cWatch with me, bella,\u201d he says invitingly. He pats the couch cushion next to him. Removes his glasses and rubs his eyes as if to better appreciate me. Smiles. His bad mood has apparently already vanished, as quickly as our savings account dropped to zero. But I cannot stay. I have too much to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do I manage my anger and despair? Well, that\u2019s why a woman has a barn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Because I\u2019m late\u2014flustered by the regrettable exchange with Michael, then by trying to settle him down in front of the TV and set aside something for his early dinner, labeling the container with masking tape that says eat me\u2014Shruti is behind the counter at Edin General, where I should be, ringing up two Slim Jims, a string of lotto tickets, and three packs of Camel Lights. I\u2019m sweating, my scarf trailing to the floor to the extent that I step on it and nearly choke myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can see how it\u2019s going,\u201d Shruti says, pointing to my pink face and hair matted across my brow. She takes the scarf, the hat, and my jacket, putting each in its cubby or hook to the side of the counter. As always, she looks immaculate and yet perfectly casual in her jeans and clean sneakers and brown and cream cardigan with coconut shell buttons. The color combination makes me think of Felicia, my favorite doe, and for a moment I long to be back in the barn surrounded by lop ears and so many beating hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTough morning?\u201d Shruti asks with concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I say anything about the murky state of my husband\u2019s mind, or the dire straits of our financial situation, I\u2019ll cry myself a river. A nod is all I can manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shruti tries another tack. \u201cDid you see the game last night?\u201d She is a Celtics superfan, having become hooked on the NBA through trying to bond with her son, now an assistant professor at one of the nearby colleges. \u201cIf he doesn\u2019t give us grandchildren in five years, we\u2019re going to sue him,\u201d she joked recently. Shruti is dying to attend a Celtics game in person, though when I ask her why she hasn\u2019t looked for tickets, she shrugs sheepishly and says her son is too busy to go with her. Apparently, Hari, her husband, does not share her passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry, hon. Missed it,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She tells me \u201cour\u201d team lost to Philadelphia 89\u201380. \u201cKyrie didn\u2019t play,\u201d which I guess explains everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glumly thinking about her team\u2019s loss, Shruti gives me a last look of concern, then leaves for the back room, where she has calls to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do I manage my anger and despair? Well, that\u2019s why a woman has a barn.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I open the cash register to the hand-worn scent of bills and coins and ink from leaky pens. The ding and thrust of the jaw opening and closing has the satisfying feel of childhood toys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shruti has given me the exalted title of associate manager to justify paying me ten dollars above minimum wage plus a small bonus at the end of the year. In addition to staffing the register, I help with inventory, checkout, writing and proofreading announcements and advertisements. Shruti and Hari hired me in part for my deep roots in the community, even though I explained that I\u2019d been away so long, my contacts were limited to my parents\u2019 now elderly friends and those from high school who never left. \u201cThose are precisely the people we want to attract,\u201d Shruti assured me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow much is this, and how do you eat it?\u201d A lanky, dark-haired boy with bangs in his eyes holds up a package of Shruti\u2019s frozen samosas. They are delicious, as good as Michael and I have eaten in any restaurant. I tell the kid what they are and how to reheat them in the oven so they get nice and crispy. A package of six is ten dollars, but because I want him to try them, I give it to him for five bucks and plan to slip the other five from my wallet into the register once he leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey go well with beer,\u201d I say. \u201cTry that IPA in the blue can; it\u2019s from a brewery just on the other side of the river.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, I\u2019ve heard of it,\u201d he says, and shrugs. \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pack everything up and take his card. Then I hold out the chutneys, mint and tamarind, displaying them in the palm of my hand like precious stones. I explain they\u2019re like salsa, a dipping sauce. \u201cCome back and let me know if you like them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As much as I love Shruti, I often find the store disquieting, not only because I see people I used to know, or should know, or no longer want to know, but because I can be interrupted at any moment. That\u2019s what makes retail the pits, as my mother used to say. It\u2019s hard to believe that I worked for twenty years in a field where all you do is talk to people. I always found PR spiritually effortful, but I thought that\u2019s just what a real job was. To make real money, you had to escape the provinces and do things you didn\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m relieved when the doorbell sounds the young man\u2019s exit. My eyes mindlessly follow him to his car waiting on the road\u2019s shoulder, engine running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just then, the door to the house across the street opens, and a tall, well-shaped woman in stylish thick-heeled boots rushes down the stairs to the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My breath catches. I lean closer and jut my nose into the windowpane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I rush to the back room, where Shruti is on the computer. \u201cThe woman across the street in the old Masonic Lodge. Do you know her?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend peers at me over her computer glasses. \u201cAlexandra Stevens? Just a little. I met her on the sidewalk last week. Why?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe went to high school together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWere you friends?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVery close, for a time. Do you know why she\u2019s here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shruti looks at me curiously, a sly smile playing on her lips. \u201cI guess she couldn\u2019t stay away, like you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shake my head. Back then, Sandy didn\u2019t have a country bone in her body. That was part of what drew me to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to rush out and hug her. To share the shock of being back in Edin as adults. But I\u2019m also hesitant. I\u2019d always assumed Sandy left the way she did because she couldn\u2019t stand to stick around our dumpy town anymore. And that included dumpy me. I look down at my wrinkled, untucked shirt and my dirty boots. Well, she wouldn\u2019t be surprised at Lucy in the present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I return to the counter and watch out the window as Sandy fishes for her keys. I\u2019m crouching. I don\u2019t want her to see me. When I think of it through Sandy\u2019s eyes, I\u2019m embarrassed to be working at the store. More than once, living in New York over the years, I thought, If only Sandy could see me.<\/em> She never did, and after all our teenaged talk about getting out of this place, it looks as if I\u2019ve never left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s she doing back, and what would she think of me now? I also can\u2019t help but wonder if she\u2019s sorry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

It was, at first, a triumphant return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I quit Columbia\u2019s PR office, and Michael retired from the university\u2019s Classics Department. We planned to subsist on his 403(b) and our joint savings, while he enjoyed the writing life and I took over my father\u2019s farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a wonderful idea this was!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My husband was seventy-seven, and I was thirty years younger. We thought we had ten good years ahead of us. Michael was healthy, still walked all over the city, and his mother had lived to ninety-five. We still had sex most Saturday mornings. He\u2019d never been self-conscious of our age difference. I wasn\u2019t embarrassed, but I did notice the way people looked at us, wondering if we were a couple or father and daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five years before our move, during a stretch of intense craving that felt like the kind women describe when they want a baby, I suddenly wanted to keep goats and make my own yogurt and cheese. My father, thrilled, swiftly began a persuasion campaign. He was waiting for his heart to give out, and he told me bluntly that he\u2019d die easier knowing the land would continue as a farm. He lived in fear of our family\u2019s acres morphing into suburban sprawl. I was the only one left to save them. My mother was long dead, and my sister had left Edin at fourteen for boarding school and now lived contentedly in Westchester County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dad always said our land was more than a source of income. It was a landmark in town, referred to by our family name, the Richard Farm, and he\u2019d been generous in allowing a local organization to build a section of trail across one corner of the back field that connected to a longer walking route through the conservation area. Dad wanted people to enjoy the farm\u2019s bounty, whether by walking across it or eating what we raised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Columbia gave me an unpaid leave, and I interned with Judy Martin at Birchbark Dairy in the Berkshires, two hours west of Edin. I\u2019d called her after discovering her ash-covered, aged goat cheese at Murray\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farming, that summer, was an urge I suddenly couldn\u2019t ignore. And having reached my forties, I felt more entitled to follow such urges than I did when I was young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judy, who wore her hair in two gray braids, a whimsical daisy or dandelion woven in, would wake us before dawn and carry strong black tea with milk and honey in a thermos to the barn. After three hours of milking, feeding, and making the rounds, we\u2019d return to the kitchen and eat hard-boiled eggs. Judy didn\u2019t talk much until she\u2019d eaten. If she thought I needed to witness something, she\u2019d whistle like a whippoorwill and point. Those largely silent mornings of companionable labor were often my favorite parts of the day. Feeling a part of a natural rhythm and relishing the glowing sunrise on my cheeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael visited once during my months apprenticing with Judy, but for the most part he fell back into his urban bachelor routine of movies on Tuesdays and chess on Fridays. Cooking for a friend on Saturdays. In truth, that was still his routine after we married, except I didn\u2019t play chess, and his social circle expanded slightly to include friends of mine from college and the office, women who were mystified by the age of my romantic partner but did their best to be supportive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Birchbark, I went to bed with earth under my nails and the smell of milk in my nose. I slept like the newly born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the summer, I didn\u2019t want to leave. I didn\u2019t want to go back to city life. But I did, stuffing disappointment under my blazer each morning. I tried to imagine a way I could ease Dad\u2019s worries about encroaching development and satisfy my own new craving for space, for the heady scent of summer soil, for raising bleating baby goats. Would my urban husband go for it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would. Michael still adored his graduate students and paternally advising them, but he\u2019d grown distant from the undergrads and tired of his own performance in the lecture hall. I\u2019m ready for the next adventure<\/em>, he told me. A little house in the country in which to write his slim, popular Roman histories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took Michael to the farmhouse deck and spread my arms at the vision I had been nurturing for the better part of a decade. Behind us were the house, twenty acres of vegetables, and the country road. In front of us unfurled another twenty acres of relatively flat field, but then the land sloped upward into uneven hills, forested along the top ridge. You could see these hills from the road. Bikers and drivers often paused in the spring to photograph the flowering meadows and, in the fall, the brightly burning leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael shook his head in wonder, the look that I was going for. The one that came across his face when he stood inside the Pantheon, no matter how many times he\u2019d peered up into its dome. \u201cCarina come una foto.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These fields are more than a pretty picture to me, though. They\u2019re a source of profound nourishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We decided to move to Edin, provided I agreed to first spend six months in Rome, the city he\u2019d eagerly shared with me over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I told Dad that I\u2019d take over his farm, I felt like the prodigal daughter. A grin an acre wide spread across his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never gave up on you,\u201d he said. \u201cNo matter all your years away.\u201d Then he cautioned me, \u201cBut you really have to do it. Work the land, I mean. That\u2019s the only way to keep the tax breaks. Otherwise the property taxes and the upkeep will eat you out of house and home.\u201d He died a year later, fully at peace, he assured me. My sister Sue was perfectly happy to leave the farm in my eager hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course I would farm it. I just needed to start small and learn along the way. At that point, Michael and I had plenty of savings to keep us going until the land turned a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our parallel visions of country cultivation and literary productivity worked according to plan our first year back in Edin, as Michael typed away on his Olivetti and I planted my first garden in thirty years. The harvest went smoothly, and I reopened the farm stand at the corner of the front field. I made a plan for our hundred and one acres. Built a rudimentary milking parlor and cheese room to get my state inspection. I wanted to start out all organic for the dairy, but the price of organic feed shocked me into making that a goal for a few years down the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Judy\u2019s does kidded last spring, I took home two mamas, Nana and Brie, and Nana\u2019s two doelings, Bora-Bora and Felicia. Also a proven buck, Derek Jeter (Judy is a Yankees fan). I handled the kids from the get-go to accustom them to my voice and smell. It was love at first sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also in April, I deducted the cost of every purchased animal and pound of feed and, in exchange for the near evaporation of my property taxes, swore to the government\u2014as Dad had done\u2014that I would not develop the land for ten years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I handled the kids from the get-go to accustom them to my voice and smell. It was love at first sight.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Slow and steady, I\u2019d build my dairy, consulting with Judy along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then six months ago, the whirlwind summer harvest underway, as we were dripping in tomatoes and melons and everything green, something curious occurred. When I went into the bank to apply for a home equity loan to replace our leaking roof and invest in more animals and equipment, I discovered a craterous hole in our savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had we been swindled? I raced home to ask my husband what he knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he explained, his eyes expanded, the pupils widening into larger and larger circles. A look I\u2019d seen before. Sudden, extravagant purchases used to appear in our apartment from time to time: a top-flight Vitamix, tickets for a last-minute flight to San Francisco. Many of these luxuries on the border of affordability I was guilty of enjoying. Neither of us grew up with money, and we relished the finer things. His excuse was always some discount or time-limited window (truffles enjoy such a short harvest season!). In this case, he had \u201cloaned\u201d the money to Alfie Romano, a beloved former grad student, Italian-American like Michael. Alfie had always been special. He\u2019d dined at our apartment nearly every Friday for five years. Michael had been devastated when Alfie quit the program, but I had seen that the young man was not cut out for the slow pace of academia. He was a thrill seeker with great ideas but poor execution. Unfortunately, Michael had never been able to recognize his brilliant student\u2019s flaws. So when Alfie launched his machine translation company and exhausted his first and second rounds of funding, he\u2019d come to Michael as a last-ditch effort. \u201cI couldn\u2019t bear to tell him no,\u201d my generous husband said, his long face pulled down into sadness. \u201cBesides,\u201d he said brightly, \u201cit can\u2019t fail. We\u2019ve gotten in on the ground floor!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no \u2018we\u2019 here,\u201d I said, still in shock. \u201cWhat were you thinking, doing this without talking to me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be fine,\u201d Michael said. \u201cWe\u2019ll get it back and then some.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen?\u201d I reminded him about the leaking roof, the sagging barn. The dairy enterprise that lay dormant, waiting for funds to expand. My whole reason for moving back to Edin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSoon, my dear. Be patient. Genius takes time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was furious. A hole gaped in the pit of my stomach. How would we manage?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I also saw something terrifying in that moment. The flippancy of his answer told me that Michael had not thought through Alfie\u2019s plan. When I asked him questions, he was evasive when normally he\u2019d have exuberantly dived into the details. Something had clouded his judgment. Had Alfie pulled a fast one? Or was the problem internal to my husband?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genius might take its sweet time, but I didn\u2019t have to wait long for the results of Alfie\u2019s venture. Michael woke up one morning three months ago, took a phone call in his office (my sister Sue\u2019s old bedroom), and reported that Alfie\u2019s business had failed. \u201cIt is no more,\u201d is the way he put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There would be no return on investment. Nor a return of our<\/em> investment. The ground floor had fallen through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Michael seemed to show no real understanding of the bind this placed us in. \u201cI\u2019m in my last years, I don\u2019t need much. I\u2019ll eat like a bird,\u201d he said. Was that a serene smile on his face? Why did he show no remorse?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I called Judy in a cold panic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood thing you\u2019re freshening the does,\u201d she said matter-of-factly. \u201cNow you\u2019ll have something to sell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I heard voices in the background. \u201cYou have company?\u201d I asked. \u201cI don\u2019t want to keep you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of those silly talk shows,\u201d she said in the same even tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was too concerned with my own predicament to ask what she was doing inside at noon on a Saturday at the height of breeding season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my internship, I had asked a lot of questions. Usually, they were about the goats. But one morning, standing in the hayfield, Judy about to mount the tractor, the July sun shining down from high above, I asked if she ever got lonely; her closest neighbor lived two miles down a dirt road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes, at Christmas, I wish someone would roast me a goose,\u201d she said, half smiling. \u201cBig, luscious meals are for sharing. Of course, I have Brad, but he likes to travel with his friends and I\u2019m not the hosting kind of mother, so I try not to put pressure on him.\u201d She looked at me with eyebrows raised, wondering if I understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did. Possibly I was so drawn to Judy because my mother died when I was in college; that would be the psychoanalytical interpretation. Except Judy wasn\u2019t maternal in a classically nurturing way. She was about the transfer of information and valuing every living being\u2019s special properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo yes, I do get lonely for conversation. For sharing milestones. But the day to day . . .\u201d She shook her head. \u201cNah. I have an abundance of life to keep me company.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God, I admired her in that moment. I never again doubted her solitary contentment. I can do this on my own<\/em>, I said to myself after hanging up. Just like Judy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

When I arrive home from the store, Michael is already asleep. I change into my barn clothes. A frigid sleet is from the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the does\u2019 comically droopy ears lift my spirits. As I feed them, I admire Brie\u2019s rich chocolate brown coat. She\u2019s the most aloof of the four. Nana\u2019s face is beige and white, and she\u2019s still protective of her daughters, Felicia and Bora-Bora. Felicia has a wispy black beard and rubs her head against the side of my thigh affectionately. She\u2019s my favorite, for the way she tilts her head when I speak to her, as if ardently listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All four paw the floor and bang impatiently against the slats that separate them from the feed trough.\u201cI\u2019m on it,\u201d I tell them. I pour fresh water, noting with satisfaction the success of my low-budget solution to keep the water from freezing: a plastic bottle filled with saltwater floating on the surface, bobbing just enough to break up any ice. Someday I\u2019d like to heat the goats\u2019 drinking water in winter, to lessen the shock to their systems, but right now the extra electricity is beyond our budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t eaten since lunch but it\u2019s been a long day. I chomp a wedge of Judy\u2019s alpine-style cheese, call that supper, and get into bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some hours later I\u2019m awakened by a crash. Followed by a weak cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael is tipped over the sofa, his white T-shirt gleaming under a sliver of moonlight. Bare legs like plucked drumsticks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He must have heard me come into the living room because he says, his voice muffled by the cushions, \u201cI can\u2019t move.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My heart speeds up as I race toward him, nearly tripping on the coffee table. \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLavatory,\u201d he says. Where he was headed. \u201cCarpet.\u201d The shag that tripped him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoes anything hurt?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together we bend his knees so his lower legs are flat on the floor and he is able to wrestle his arms underneath him and push his torso up so he\u2019s in a kneeling position. He\u2019s sweating lightly and I feel his heat. Not once in the past few months have we been naked together, touching like we used to. He clasps his hands into a mock prayerful position. \u201cLike the good Catholic I am.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please, God, let this not be the first of many.<\/em> That is my useless supplication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get him up on his feet and walk gingerly to the bathroom. I wait while he waits\u2014\u201cDamn prostate\u201d\u2014and then support him as he walks back to bed, a noticeable wobble in his step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you need anything checked out? Sure nothing hurts?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI fell into the sofa, bella,\u201d he says testily. \u201cNot the bookcase. I\u2019m fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite his protests, I sit with him while he settles himself and falls back asleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I get to work. I turn on all the lights and pull on thick gloves, gather a pair of pliers and a large, sharp X-Acto. The first incision is tough, exhilarating work. I cut another strip and another, moving furniture as I go. With pliers I pull up the staples and then tug on the golden shag. Decades-old dust rises and I cough, remember a mask Dad kept in the pantry, and fit that on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I yank and pull with all my strength, I think about Sandy, the glimpse of her out the store window. An unnamable emotion rises within me. Am I still mad at her for leaving the way she did?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were besties for all of high school\u2014as soon as Sandy moved here from suburban Connecticut before the start of our freshman year and we both went out for soccer. We loved each other; I feel sure of that. We were always hanging our arms over each other\u2019s shoulders, wrapping them around waists, sleeping with legs intertwined. This felt natural and normal, but sometimes we were made to think it wasn\u2019t. Some guy would say, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you two make out already?\u201d But that didn\u2019t bother us. It was strange that I was closer to Sandy than I was to my sister Sue, and for a while I think my parents felt bad about the contrast, but they liked Sandy so much, she was soon part of the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summer after senior year I was working for Dad on the farm, which Sandy thought a bad idea. \u201cScoop ice cream with me,\u201d she said. \u201cAll you\u2019ve ever done is farm. Employers want to see a diversity of experience.\u201d Something she\u2019d read in the newspaper or heard from our drippy guidance counselor. She\u2019d convinced the owner of the ice cream stand to give her the title of manager because she thought that would help her get better internships in college. But Dad counted on me, and I liked being outside. I didn\u2019t want to sweat inside some tiny shack, even with Sandy by my side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan that final day had been for me to ride my bike to The Big Dipper, then we\u2019d put my bike on the back of her car and drive out to the lake. The previous night had been normal, cozy; we\u2019d gotten tipsy on my father\u2019s beer after swimming in the river all afternoon. Sandy fell asleep in my bed. The next day I rode the fifteen mountainous miles to the shack. But when I got there, her boss said she\u2019d never shown up. Nor did she after I waited for her all afternoon, the boss finally taking pity on me and giving me a milkshake, an order gone wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too embarrassed to call my parents, and knowing they were busy anyway, I rode all the way back home, up and down the fierce hills, crying most of the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I called Sandy\u2019s house, and her mother told me she\u2019d left early for college. \u201cShe didn\u2019t tell you?\u201d Mrs. Stevens sounded surprised. \u201cGuess that explains her bitchy mood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandy wrote one rambling, apologetic letter to me at Barnard once classes had started. I wrote back, holding my anger and pretending I understood that she was just \u201csuper anxious to get a job and settle in before Sept.\u201d I asked if she\u2019d be home for Thanksgiving, but I never heard from her again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGirls this age,\u201d my mother said, shaking her head. \u201cI know I was one, but I\u2019ll never understand them. I can\u2019t believe Sandy, our Sandy, would be so rude and heartless. Try not to take it too hard, chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom tried her best, but how do you get over such heart- break at eighteen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I labor, sweating heavily, until the ghostly pre-dawn hours. Tomorrow I\u2019ll call the plumber and fix up the back bathroom so my beloved no longer has to traverse the living room to pee in the middle of the night. Should have done that months ago. But months ago that haunted look didn\u2019t flicker in Michael\u2019s eyes. A look I mistook, at first, for guilt over throwing away our savings, but now I wonder if there isn\u2019t something else going on. Something we both have chosen to ignore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from Surrender by Jennifer Acker I was a small child, my head the height of theirs, when I noticed the black parts of their eyes were shaped like shoeboxes. But I didn\u2019t know then that their rectangular pupils are adaptive. Goats take their meals on savannas or other wide-open spaces that leave them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1546,"featured_media":308786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5557,63],"tags":[690,205,178,316,547,170,5577,94,5702,556],"class_list":["post-308757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lit-mags","category-recommended-reading","tag-animals","tag-environment","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-home","tag-marriage","tag-recommended-reading","tag-relationships","tag-rural","tag-work"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Goat Farmer Is Only as Vulnerable as Her Goats - 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