The Underside of Joy

by Seré Prince Halverson

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told her about the rides and how fun it was except for the Ferris wheel and how we got stuck up there forever.’ She laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. ‘Remember that?’

  ‘I do.’

  She stuck her hands in her pockets.

  ‘What, Mommy?’

  ‘Did you mention, possibly, that we almost got in an accident?’

  The big head nod again. ‘That was scary! Remember how the tires screeched?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Why do you sound so funny?’

  ‘Annie? Did you mention that I yelled at you and Zach?’

  Annie started whimpering and nodding, barely now, her chin tucked into her chest.

  ‘Honey, it’s okay. You’re not in trouble. I just need to know.’

  ‘She was asking me and asking me! She kept asking me questions and you and Daddy told me always tell the truth, no matter what. So I did. You did say the G-D word Grandpa always says before Grandma gets mad at him. Remember?’

  I couldn’t help but smile. Even though fear pulsed through me. ‘I do, though I’m trying like crazy to forget. I’d kinda hoped you’d forgotten.’

  ‘Nope. I remember it perfectly. You know’ – she tapped her forehead – ‘elephant memory. You said, “You kids shut up! I can’t goddamn drive!” And you hit the steering wheel really hard. And then you held your hand and said, “Ow.” Did I do something wrong, Mommy?’

  ‘No, sweetie. You didn’t do anything wrong, I did.’ And Paige, I thought but didn’t say. Grilling Annie to get information. Shame on her. But then, I’d done the same thing by asking Annie about it. Shame on me.

  Chapter Twelve

  Despite the scare from Paige, I pressed on. We called a family meeting. David had already filled Joe Sr and Marcella in on both my idea for the store and the financial situation. Joe Sr cut to the chase: ‘Ella, you listen to me. This family has been through hard times before. Shortly after my papa opened Capozzi’s, he had to go away, due to circumstances beyond his control. But this town, it pulled together and helped my mama, and the store, and our family survived. This store is my papa’s, our family’s legacy. And it will go to Annie and Zach someday.’ He grabbed both my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. ‘Mother and I will do whatever we can to help save the store. We’ve got some money socked away for a rainy day. We’ll help you remodel it. It’s for our grandchildren. What grandparent can say no to that?’

  If only Joe had known that’s how his dad would react.

  One thing Joe and I had managed to get right was our wills. We’d written them up when we got married, and he willed the store to me, with the understanding that I would be taking care of Annie and Zach if anything should happen to him. Now I agreed to invest most of the insurance proceeds and to sell an interest in the store to Marcella, Joe Sr, and David. In return, they would kick in money, and we’d remodel and add a commercial kitchen. Things would be tight for a while, no one was going to be making big bucks, but we were all willing to think of it as an investment.

  Besides, everyone agreed that we all needed a big project, that we would do it to honour Joe. David patted Marcella’s arm and said, ‘I’d be honoured to be the chef, but only with Ma’s help.’ Marcella beamed – the happiest I’d seen her since before we’d lost Joe.

  I wanted Annie and Zach to be in on the plans, so a few days after we settled everything, I took them on a picnic.

  When Joe was alive, he was always the planner, the one who’d come home and say, ‘Let’s go,’ always an element of surprise along the way. He loved to surprise us, to surprise just me sometimes too. He arranged for the kids to stay with his parents and made reservations at a bed-and-breakfast up in Mendocino or had the truck packed for camping. I’d never see it coming. His surprises had a kaleidoscope quality to them, revealing something new at each turn. A drive turned into a stop at an inn, which turned into dinner, which turned into an overnight, which turned into a weekend away, with picnics and packed clothes and books and thermoses of hot tea. He didn’t plan expensive trips – he knew the owners, or Joe Sr did, or they were related in some way that always meant big discounts and extra desserts. The few times I’d tried to surprise him, I’d accidentally leave some clue – a phone number lying on the counter, or a message on the machine from the camera store. But he always covered his tracks. Once I’d joked, ‘You cover your tracks way too well. You better not ever have an affair.’

  I unbuckled Zach from his car seat, still thinking about how carefully Joe planned his surprises, how much I’d loved that about him, and how at the time, I’d known that was one thing that made our romance possible, even though it grew in the midst of needy young children. Surprise dates. Time alone. Knowing he cared enough to plan. Me, distracted enough to surprise. Distracted enough to think everything was okay, even when it wasn’t.

  Now it was my job to plan the outings and fix the things I hadn’t noticed. Callie led us down the path into Quilted Woods, a place sacred to Joe and me, and one I wouldn’t include on the picnic map. It was private property, but the owners didn’t mind if the locals used it. They’d even built a wooden platform for people to give performances or have weddings under the redwoods.

  I loved the way redwoods grow in circular groves, reproducing through ‘suckers’ – shoots that root in the ground and form new trees – which draw nourishment from the mother tree, even from its roots after the tree is long gone . . . hundreds, even thousands of years. And yet, if you were to take the younger shoots away from the mother tree and attempt to replant them, they would most likely wither and die.

  The kids ran up to the stage area while I spread the blanket in a clearing. The redwoods canopied a forest of Douglas fir, western hemlock, tanbark oak. Moss carpeted the rocks and fallen trunks, and a rich array of plant life – ferns, bleeding hearts, oxalis, wild ginger, to name a few – spread between them. Once, when no one was around and we’d drunk a little wine, Joe and I had made love in these woods. I’d worn a long skirt, which I kept on, lowering myself onto him. He unbuttoned my shirt, and I remembered how warm and buttery the slant of sun and his hands felt on my nipples, how hard and full and slow he was inside me. Now I felt a pull I hadn’t felt since he’d died.

  A bird, a mama killdeer, white-breasted with dark rings like necklaces, had seen me and was pretending to have a broken wing. She’d take a few tiny steps, dragging her wing on the ground. Then take a few more steps. What an actress. Her babies must have been close by, and she was doing a great job distracting me. I wish it could be that simple with Paige. Just pretend I broke my arm and then she’d somehow completely forget about the kids.

  The kids.

  I jumped up. Annie and Zach were gone. I looked towards the bridge, where they liked to throw sticks and run to the other side to watch them rush by. They weren’t there, either. And what about Callie? I called out, but no one answered. The creek wasn’t deep enough for them to slip in and drown – was it? I started to run, to call their names. Callie didn’t even bark a response.

  I found them too far past the bridge. How long had I been thinking about making love with Joe? Watching the killdeer? They were throwing handfuls of blackberries up in the air, yelling, ‘Here you go! Here you go!’ and laughing wildly.

  ‘What in the world are you doing?’ My fear and ready reprimand dissolved. Besides, I didn’t want Annie to realize I’d lost track of them and then tell Paige. But what were they doing? Even Callie sat watching them, cocking her head in wonderment.

  They kept snatching more off the bush, oblivious to the thorns, the juice and blood from their scratches mixing in tiny rivulets down their arms. Annie laughed again. ‘Don’t you know? We’re sending Daddy berries.’

  ‘To heaven!’ Zach yelled. ‘And someday I’m going to go to heaven to visit him! On Thomas the Tank Engine!’

  ‘Actually,’ Annie said, stopping to aim her grin directly at me. ‘We’re sending him Rubus fruticosus.’ It was one
of the first Latin plant names my father had taught me. And I had taught Annie. And like me, she had a knack for remembering.

  Later, as we ate lunch, I told them how we were going to make the store a place to get picnic baskets and good lunches and games. I reminded them how Daddy’s grandpa had built the store, how it had been in the family, and told them how it was ours and Uncle David’s and Nonna’s and Nonno’s. That we would always remember Daddy whenever we were at the store. That now they were going to be a big part of it too, because I would need their help, and that someday it would be theirs, if they wanted it when they grew up.

  ‘Daddy loved picnics,’ Annie said.

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Daddy was the picnic CRUSADER!’ Zach said, bolting up, while I reached out to keep a couple of cups from spilling all over our lunch spread.

  ‘Yes, he was.’

  ‘Mommy?’ he asked. ‘I want to be a picnic crusader too. Can I use this picnic blanket for a cape?’

  ‘No, bud. You can’t.’

  ‘Because our stuff is all over it?’

  ‘That’s exactly why. You are one smart crusader.’

  ‘Even without my cape?’

  ‘Even without your cape.’

  The overhaul of Capozzi’s Market began immediately. The whole family joined us – all the aunts and uncles and cousins. The next weekend, close to everyone in Elbow turned out. I hauled away boxes of canned goods and disassembled shelving until my arms and legs and back throbbed, and then woke up the next day and did it again. Frank helped a crew working on a greenhouse-type addition at the back of the store for the winter months, when the rain would deter even the most diehard picnickers.

  Frank told me he was looking forward to having his coffee by the fire in the mornings. We stared at each other for a long moment, his eyes saying how much he missed Joe. I hadn’t seen him enough since Joe died; he’d come by a few times, but it had just felt awkward and sad, both of us lonely for the same person, neither of us able to be that person for the other. Lizzie even stopped by with a big cooler full of drinks and snacks. She nodded in my direction but talked to David, not me, then slipped back out, waving to and hugging one person after another. I wondered if she’d talked to Paige, if they’d mocked my What are your intentions? question.

  But Paige had called Annie only a few times since our conversation, and I hoped that she might be pulling back a bit. At least I kept telling myself that she was.

  At first, the fact that we were taking apart Joe’s store lay thick and cold as the morning fog, and we moved hesitantly, quietly. Me wondering: Why didn’t we do this a long time ago, together? Why did Joe have to die before we fixed this? But the mood lightened when I began to feel Joe cheering us on. I saw what it must have been like for him to feel it slipping away, that it had begun to represent failure and that perhaps from wherever he was now, he might be relieved. Maybe even proud.

  I was taking down the family photographs when Joe Sr came up and said, ‘Where are you going to put those?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but definitely in a prominent place. Where do you think they should go?’

  He took one from me. It was an old black-and-white. Someone had written in black in the corner, Capozzi’s Market, 1942. Grandma Rosemary stood with two boys in front of the store.

  ‘Which one was you?’ I asked.

  He pointed to the youngest, a boy of about seven or eight wearing a tilted cap and a smudge on his face. The other boy looked like a teenager. ‘I didn’t know you had an older brother.’

  He nodded. ‘He died in the war. Fighting for this country.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That must have been hard.’ He nodded again, still staring at the photograph. ‘Hey, where’s Grandpa Sergio? Is he taking the picture?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. He gave his son to fight against Italy, but he wasn’t a citizen yet, so . . .’

  I held up another photo, also dated 1942. ‘He’s not in this one, either.’

  ‘No, honey. My papa wasn’t around when those pictures were taken . . . Like I’ve said, he had to go away for a while.’ These photos were taken when he was in the camps. I knew but I didn’t ask. And with that, Joe Sr handed back the photo and turned and walked out the door. I understood. I’d grown up in a family that didn’t talk about certain things, and I felt most at home not asking the questions.

  I shuffled through the frames until I came to one, taken later, on the same front porch, with Sergio, Joe Sr, and Joe, as a toddler. Joe’s arms were up, as if he were about to call a touchdown. Both men smiled down at him.

  I forced myself to get up in the morning to do not only the things I needed to do, but also some of the things I loved. I fulfilled my duties at the store and spent time with Annie and Zach. Sometimes, in moments that felt a bit like grace, I combined the two, having them help me with restocking, deciding what picnic spots would be featured on the Life’s a Picnic map, which Clem Silver had agreed to draw; he’d even ventured down to the store for a meeting.

  At the store, I kept pulling out craft projects for the kids, and in between sanding and painting and hammering, I’d sit down to join them. I found an odd satisfaction in making messes and cleaning them up. I tried to keep my mind clear of anything but the task at hand, whether it was mixing shrimp and mango curry salad or deciding on a pattern for a beaded necklace, then following it exactly: two blue wooden beads followed by three green glass beads followed by one silver. No surprises. As predictable as the minutes ticking by. Until the time I pulled too hard and the string broke, scattering beads under the refrigerator case so that I could retrieve only enough to make a bracelet. And I remembered that even time – especially time – was far from predictable.

  We worked in the garden too – harvesting more vegetables than we could ever use. I took bags of artichokes, tomatoes, basil, and more to Marcella and David, who added them to our menu creations.

  I made juice Popsicles for Annie and Zach like my mom had made for me, in her old Tupperware Popsicle mould. I even filled Dixie cups with a Milk-Bone and chicken bouillon and froze them for Callie. I was on top of things in a way I never had been. Certainly, I assured myself, in a way Paige had never been and never could be. I was the poster woman for the perfect widow/mother/store saver/dog lover.

  But then something would remind me that I really wasn’t all that.

  One day I opened the freezer to find Zach’s action figure frozen in a plastic cup of solid ice. Batman lay cold, masked, unmoving, his right arm reaching out for me, urging me to set him free. Zach ran in, sweaty and smudged, asking for apple juice. I held out the human Popsicle, and he said, ‘Mr Freeze zapped him.’ For days, whenever I opened the freezer, I found another victim of Mr Freeze’s in a pie plate or plastic container: Spider-Man, Superman, Robin; apparently even villains like the Joker and Catwoman could not dodge Mr Freeze’s ice machine.

  I left them, but soon there was no room in the freezer. ‘Zach,’ I said. ‘Honey? What do you want to do with all these frozen guys? We don’t have any room.’

  He shrugged. ‘I can’t do anything. Dr Solar has to rescue them.’

  I asked him when he thought Dr Solar might show up.

  He looked out at the fogless morning. ‘Today probably.’

  Later, as I hung up clothes on the line, admiring how Grandma Rosemary had held it all together with Sergio gone – part of me tempted to pretend Joe was unfairly locked behind a chain-link fence with barbed wire instead of under a headstone – I heard Zach let out a scream that gave me goose bumps, even in the warm sunshine. I ran up to the house. Zach stood on the back porch, face red, tears streaming.

  ‘Look what you made me do!’ he wailed.

  On the porch, in the direct sun, were the seven plastic containers Zach had lined up that morning, action figures floating facedown in the melted ice.

  ‘Now they’ve all DROWNED!’

  ‘Oh, honey . . .’ Why hadn’t I thought this through?

  ‘And they’re DEAD! And they�
�re never, ever, ever coming back! Even when I’m a big boy.’

  I wanted to save every one of the masked hard bodies, the Caped Crusader, the Boy Wonder. I dumped out the water, pointed out that they all had superhuman powers, anyway, and could defy their untimely deaths. Zach had spent hours playing with them every day, and I wanted him to keep enjoying them. But he insisted on burying them. He wanted to have a funeral for them. And I didn’t try to fix this for him, because I couldn’t fix the rest.

  So I held him while he sobbed, and I helped him bury the plastic bodies out behind the chicken coop. Zach never asked me again when Daddy was coming back.

  He began to understand, bit by bit, then more and more, the difference between Joe’s death and Paige’s departure, and life’s never-ending track of good-byes.

  Chapter Thirteen

  By mid-September, the kids had started school, and we were ready to reopen the store.

  We kept the old capozzi’s market sign and, just under it, hung the new sign, life’s a picnic. There was still plenty of picnic weather during the Indian summer, and then the mostly pleasant fall days before the rains set in. But even in the winter, there would be plenty of sunshine between storms that would be perfect for picnickers. The greenhouse addition would provide a backup spot for when the rainstorms came in the deep of winter, and we also set round café tables and chairs on the covered front porch and in one corner of the store, near the woodstove.

  Most of the aisles were gone. The deli counter ran along one entire wall. We’d stocked it with an abundance of cold salads – everything from curry chicken to eggplant pasta, and of course Elbow’s famous elbow macaroni salad, which was your basic macaroni salad with salami thrown in, but we called it famous because of the Elbow connection. We offered sandwiches of every kind imaginable, including our Stuffed Special, made from hollowed-out bread rounds and filled with layers of meats, cheeses, vegetables, and pesto. Everything was made from scratch with fresh ingredients, locally grown whenever possible, grass-fed beef, free-range chickens, no hormone additives, and a whole lot of organic. I knew enough about biology and growing vegetables that I had become a pesticide paranoid, and I wanted to make sure that I was nourishing our customers, not slowly poisoning them. Yes, it was more expensive to use top-quality ingredients, and yes, our prices reflected that, but my gut – which happened to be fairly healthy, as far as I knew – was telling me people were ready for Life’s a Picnic.