The Underside of Joy

by Seré Prince Halverson

  Paige and I were both pregnant at the same time. When I’d first met them, I figured out that one of my babies would be the same age as Annie, almost exactly. I found Annie’s baby book, which I had never seen, though that was one of the few things I’d asked Joe about. He’d shrugged and said he wasn’t sure where it was. Did Paige stick it in this box, planning to retrieve it someday? It was homemade, covered in pink and white bunny fabric, with her name, Annie Rose Capozzi, and the date of her birth, November 7, 1992, cross-stitched in the centre. I thought about not opening it – for about two seconds. I knew nothing in it would make me feel better. But I looked anyway, at the photos of Paige, glowing even in labour, and Joe and Paige and Annie snuggled in a hospital bed, surrounded by pink bouquets and balloons, Joe’s and Paige’s smiles equally big, connecting them to their child like the two symmetrical sides of an anchor.

  I flipped through more pages of Annie, and Annie with Marcella, with Joe Sr with Frank and Lizzie and David, but no pictures of Paige, not until Easter, five months later, where she resumed her place again, resurrected from oblivion. There weren’t many pictures of Joe, since he was the one who’d taken most of them. Maybe that was worse, because these photos reflected what he saw, what he loved – his presence in them stronger than if he’d been standing in the middle of each one. The look on Paige’s face, that type of secret smile shared with only one other person on the planet. And Annie in her arms.

  Later that night, I sat in bed trying to pay too many of our household bills without enough bank balance. Mostly, I was waiting for Annie and Zach to call me. Callie lay at the end of the mattress, snoring, jerking her legs as she dug up dream gophers. I tried to sort all my mind’s spinning into some sort of logical sequence, but to no avail. I pulled out the nightstand drawer and rummaged through it until I found my scratch pad and pen. In my handwriting were the words chicken feed and rhubarb seeds.

  Yes, it was true. La-tee-da. My life had once seemed that simple, like the title of a silly song, the kind you’d sing on road trips: ‘Oh, I’ve got chicken feed, and rhubarb seeds, and a smile that’s a mile long. I’ve got a boy and a girl and a husband that’s a pearl, and a smile that’s a mile long.’

  Joe took care of the groceries, filling bags of whatever we needed at the end of the day. The post office was next to the store, so he always picked up the mail. And when the store was slow, he did the books. Apparently, he’d had a lot of time to do the books.

  I’d stepped into his life and had imposed little of my own onto his. I’d felt like a walking tomb that had been overly excavated, ready to collapse in on itself; there hadn’t been any life left in me then. Stumbling into Joe and the kids – a ready-made family with a mommy-size gaping hole for me to fill. I hadn’t questioned any of it. Why question what’s so clearly destiny?

  Joe and I went from not knowing each other’s names one day to raising a family the next. We never went through the phases our friends did – the long, drawn-out exhales and rolled eyes, the ‘I’ll do it, then.’ I eagerly jumped first when it came to the kids. And after months of going it alone, Joe usually let me.

  We’d been together three years. But how well had we really known each other? Perhaps not as well as I’d assumed. Henry and I were married seven years, but even after all we’d gone through together, I never felt I was privy to a different Henry than the one others knew. The conversations he had with me could have easily been had with his colleagues at work, his baseball buddies, or his mother – depending on the topic. Nothing was reserved for only us, except when it came to trying to have a baby. But when we decided we were done trying, and I wanted to talk about adoption, Henry changed the subject. We were back to brief discussions concerning lab rats, the Padres, his father’s hernia.

  Joe and I loved to talk, our conversations twisting and turning from something incredible one of the kids had done to how great the eggplants looked to a poem about a blue heron he’d read in a journal. I thought he was one of the most interesting people I’d ever met. He was funny, creative, intuitive, artistic. After Sergio died, Joe quit college to help his dad, felt it his duty to honour his grandfather’s wishes after all Sergio had been through. Joe gave up his dream of becoming a photojournalist, and photography became his hobby, where he chose to capture the best of what the world offered, always seeking out the most flattering angles and light. I’d loved that about him. But now I wondered at all he refused to look at, and the easy way his filtered perspective complemented my own.

  I picked up Paige’s business card. Callie stretched, lifted her head, then let it flop back on the mattress. She resumed snoring. I cleared my throat and practiced.

  ‘Hello? Paige? This is Ella?’ Too questioning. Too insecure.

  ‘Hello, Paige. It’s Ella. I’d like to speak to Annie now.’

  No. Too insistent. I needed to sound light, as if I really didn’t have a care in the world.

  ‘Hi, Paige. (It is Paige, isn’t it?) Hey, it’s Ella. Is Annie around?’ I dialled and hung up twice before I let it ring.

  ‘Hello. You’ve reached the cell phone voice mail of Paige Capozzi. Please leave a message, and remember, when it’s time to stage, call Paige . . .’ and a beep.

  I was going to hang up, but then I thought she probably had caller ID so I started talking. ‘Um. Hi. It’s Ella. Ella Beene? And you know . . . I was just thinking, um . . . about Annie and Zach. And I wanted to say good night. Gosh. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t there to tuck them in. I . . . I think it was Joe and my three-year anniversary? When we drove up to Mendocino for the –’ Beep.

  Wait. Didn’t she have one of those press-pound-and-erase-your-message options? I pushed buttons. I shook the phone. I said, ‘Hello? Hello?’ Nothing. I hung up.

  The phone rang, startling me because it was still in my lap.

  ‘Hi, Mommy.’ It was Zach, his voice like sweet relief filling my head, my body. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d been, how scared, really, that something horrible had happened. My new fear of bad news.

  ‘Hi, honey! Are you having fun?’

  ‘No. I wanna come home. NOW.’

  ‘Oh, Zach. What’s wrong?’

  ‘I want YOU.’ I could see him as clearly as if he stood in front of me, the way he held the phone with both hands, Bubby lodged under his arm, his belly out, knees probably bent, heels together, toes apart and facing out, like some sort of ungracefully adorable plié.

  ‘Honey? Listen . . . You’ll be home tomorrow. You have Annie. And Bubby. And a cool hotel, right? And guess what else? There’s a surprise in your suitcase. It’s in the inside pocket. Want to go get it?’

  ‘Okay!’ He set the phone down. I’d packed a new stegosaurus for him and some pretty socks for Annie to wear with her patent leathers.

  Paige said in the background, ‘How nice of Ella. Tell her thank you, Zach.’

  Ella? Again? Telling Zach to thank me? Shut up. Just shut up.

  Zach picked up the phone. ‘It’s cool, Mommy!’

  ‘Are you going to be okay now?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. I’m going to go play. Annie wants to talk.’

  Zach let out a ferocious-sounding growl, and then Annie came on the line.

  I asked if she was having fun. ‘Quite a lot.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah . . . you should see my room!’

  Oh God. Where were they? ‘You mean at the hotel?’

  ‘No. My room. Mama brought pictures. And it looks bigger than our not-so-great room.’ She giggled.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah. Wow.’

  ‘Is it the guest room?’

  ‘No. It’s mine. It says Annie in big sparkly letters on the wall. And it’s got lots of green.’ How did Paige know Annie’s favourite colour was green? And how did she get the room painted and set up so fast? ‘And some other colours too. Like lavender and pink and cream. And this big, cool bed. That’s a real castle!’

  I was sweating again, feeling li
ke I couldn’t get a breath.

  ‘Mommy?’

  ‘Yes, honey?’

  She whispered, pausing between each word, ‘I . . . miss . . . you.’ It was with utter shame that I realized how much I needed to hear those words, that for the first time ever, my children’s emotional pain somehow eased my own.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thin ribbons of sleep weaved in and out of my frenzied thoughts. When the Claytons’ rooster crowed I sat up with a start. There was one letter. I’d forgotten. The letter Joe told me about. The Dear Joe letter, in which Paige had handed over the kids to him and said arrivederci. If I could find that letter . . .

  I got up in the rosy-tinted darkness and pulled on my jeans and a sweatshirt over Joe’s T-shirt. I picked up all my globs of Kleenex, scattered in the bed like jellyfish, then switched on the lamp, picked up the scratch pad, and jotted down all the things I needed to do. Life beyond rhubarb seeds and chicken feed.

  After I cleaned the coop, I rushed down to open the store. I flipped on the lights and for a moment felt comforted. Even though all my money was sunk into it, even though we’d taken a risk and every day left us more tired and a little more broke, it still felt exactly right. I was looking forward to the day when I wouldn’t be distracted by the custody worry and could focus on my mornings behind the counter, waiting on customers, planning menus with David while the kids were in school. David walked in just then, balancing a tower of boxes.

  ‘Were your ears ringing?’ He set down the boxes and started pulling out supplies. ‘Because I was just talking to a reporter from the Press Democrat. They want to talk to you too. And – you’re gonna love this. Sunset might do a story on us. I’m working on Real Simple too. But those are months away.’

  I nodded, kept nodding.

  He reached for my shoulder. ‘You okay? You look exhausted.’

  ‘Why, thank you.’ I straightened my back. ‘I’m fine. It’s just . . . I want to stay down here and play store with you, but I’ve got to go up and look through files for this discovery shit for the hearing.’

  ‘Oooh. Sounds like too much fun.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘This too shall pass. And soon your kids will be back home with you. You’ll be walking them to school, then doing interviews for national magazines, giving them charming and clever quotes for their articles, stirring your homemade fresh-from-your-garden vegetable soup, and sashaying over to put another log on the fire.’

  ‘Right now I’m going to sashay up to the office to bury myself in piles of financial papers.’

  ‘Hey, did you roast the root vegetables?’

  ‘Um. No.’ I did not have time to roast root vegetables. ‘Do you need me to chop them?’

  ‘Oh. You didn’t even chop them?’

  ‘David. I’m sorry. I can do it now.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ No. I meant yes, I was sure that I couldn’t. But I did. I chopped carrots and sweet potatoes and butternut squash and onions fast, the way he’d taught me, in big chunks, and I almost cut my finger off twice.

  ‘Oh my God,’ David said. ‘Be careful. The recipe calls for blood orange juice, not blood and orange juice.’

  I filled a half hotel pan and tossed the vegetables with olive oil and thyme, salt and pepper, a touch of maple syrup and freshly squeezed blood-orange juice, managing to keep my own blood out of it, and stuck them in the oven so the whole store smelled of love and nurturing and wholesome goodness, and then I dashed up the stairs two at a time so I could quickly try to discover incriminating evidence regarding the woman who was trying to get custody of Annie and Zach.

  I locked the office door, just in case David showed up bearing his lemon scones to ease my pain. I pulled out more of the unmarked boxes. I was going to find that letter and bring the true Paige to the surface.

  I’d find the letter. I’d have Gwen Alterman shoot off a declaration so Paige would realize that she could visit with them but she couldn’t push her way in now and take over, take Annie and Zach away from where they belonged. Here. With me. With us.

  I found a box with Zach’s empty baby book, not handmade like Annie’s, but store-bought with blue bears. All the spaces – for first smile, first laugh, first word, first tooth – empty.

  I found more photos too. Not family photos. Photos of Paige.

  Undressing . . .

  Nude.

  As soon as it struck me what they were, I dropped them in the file and stood up. Dizzy again. I obviously needed a Xanax, so I took two out of my backpack and swallowed them. I kicked the box back into the closet, unlocked the office door, started walking down the stairs. I stopped. I turned around. I walked back, locked the door, pulled out the box, and I looked at every single photograph. I studied them. There was a series. In the first photos, she wore a long-sleeve blouse, a skirt. She looked young, maybe twenty. Many of the shots were of her face; for others she sat on a stool, stood, hand on hip. Different outfits. Nothing suggestive, really. But then she looked straight at the camera, her fingers working buttons. These shots didn’t look posed as much as documenting someone undressing. There she was taking off her blouse. Stepping out of her skirt. Reaching back to unhook her bra. Slipping out of her underwear. And then standing – again, not suggestively. Face front. Perfect breasts front. Solemn face. No half-turned look over her shoulder. Nothing coy. She looked both unsure and defiant, woman and child, sexy and sad. What man wouldn’t fall in love with her?

  Again, Joe was in these photographs. Even though I couldn’t see him, I could see his perspective. I would guess he hadn’t slept with her yet. The legal discovery request meant something else, but this was a true moment of discovery, if there ever was one. Joe discovering Paige. Me, feeling as if I’d walked in on them.

  Now . . . and maybe three years ago, when they’d hit a rough spot. I walked home, head throbbing, eyes burning, to the house Joe and Paige had set up for themselves and the kids that would soon follow. I fell into the bed where they’d made love, made Annie and Zach. I thought about calling someone, but I’d used everyone up. They needed a break from me. Hell, I needed a break from me. And besides, I didn’t want anyone to know about this. All I needed was sleep. If I could just rest, I could think straight. I got up and took another Xanax.

  Like I’ve said, I’ve never considered myself to be beautiful. Attractive, but never one to turn heads or inspire artists. Still, the way Joe had looked at me . . . I’d felt beautiful. But Joe never once asked me to pose nude. Of course, it wasn’t like we had a lot of time between giving kids baths and changing diapers to set up a boudoir studio in our bedroom.

  I climbed back into bed. Callie brought me her leash, but I just let her outside. She looked at me, disappointed, but she dropped her leash at my feet, trotted out to do her duty quickly, and came back inside, following me back into the bedroom. Utter exhaustion. I curled up under the covers. I pulled them over my head. ‘I’m done,’ I said aloud. Callie groaned and rested her chin on my legs, over the blankets.

  It started raining. The kids were due home that night, but I could not get out of bed. I tried. I finally got up to pee and let Callie out again. The good thing about Xanax, I thought to myself as I tapped out two more, is that it’s not addictive. I slept. I woke to pounding rain, but only long enough to wonder how one single wave could take away all that was good and leave all this wreckage tossed up on the shore. And then I slept again.

  Callie’s yelp woke me. Car lights ran the length of my bedroom wall like a searchlight probing the deepest dark. Tires slapped through puddles. I heard car doors open, Paige’s voice. I’d left the door unlocked, the lights out. I had to get up. Get. Up.

  I pulled on my jeans. So dizzy. I stumbled out to the hall just as they burst in. Paige flipped on the light, and its brightness made me wince. The kids held big balloons freckled with raindrops. They wore bright trendy clothes. They’d had haircuts. They both had bangs! Like Paige. Like battle lines drawn across their perfect foreheads, I thought, staking her cla
im on their minds. And then I thought, Oh man, does Xanax make you dramatic?

  Zach slept against Paige’s shoulder, his mouth slightly open. Annie held on to her new lime green purse and matching balloon and looked at me.

  ‘Are you sick, Mommy?’ she asked.

  ‘Um . . . Yes. The flu.’

  Paige said, ‘Oh! I wish you’d called. I could have kept them longer.’

  ‘It’s fine. I’m starting to feel better.’

  ‘I hope they don’t get it.’

  I bent down and hugged Annie.

  ‘The flu is really contagious,’ Paige added.

  Oh, bite me, Miss January. I took Zach from her, his head heavy and bobbing between us. ‘Good-bye,’ I said.

  She leaned over my shoulder and kissed Zach, and her hair swept against my face, leaving a trace of citrus jasmine in the air. He woke and wriggled out of my arms to pet Callie. Paige gave Annie a hug. ‘Call me tomorrow, sweet pea, like we said.’

  ‘Okay, Mama.’

  ‘Be good for Ella.’

  I closed the door before her foot hit the first step off the porch. I tried to shake it off, but instead I opened the door and stuck my head out. ‘Ah, Paige?’

  She turned.

  ‘It’s not Ella.’

  ‘I beg your pardon? Do I have your name wrong?’

  ‘The kids call me Mommy.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Really. They have for three years. But you wouldn’t know that because you weren’t here.’ I shut the door. Annie and Zach stood, holding their rain-spattered balloons, watching me. ‘Anybody hungry?’

  They shook their heads. ‘All I want to do is sleep,’ Annie said. ‘That mama lady took us to a fancy-pants place.’ Zach sighed and they climbed into their own beds before I had the chance to coax them into mine. It was for the best, I knew, to try to get back to some sense of normalcy, but still I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking if they’d get lonely in their own beds. They were too tired to talk much, and so I tucked them in and stayed with them, watching them fall asleep, their faces framed in their newly cut bangs, as the rain tapped out a lullaby on the roof. The balloons had risen and now hovered in opposite corners against the ceiling.