Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

There, on the first page only, was the handwriting that should have been on the chalkboard, the boyish quality of it. I traced the letters with my fingertip. Not long before, he’d sat in the same place, hunched over the same forms, just in case… someday… Had he wondered about his death then? About how? Or when? Or how the three of us would have to find a way to get up the next day without him, and the next?

I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and blotted the tear that had fallen on the form. I was not going to start that again. I held the tissue against my eyes, as if I could push the tears back inside their ducts. In some ways it was harder to be in the store than at home. Had I even set foot in this office before without Joe? He was the last person to sit in this chair, to rest his rough elbows on this desk, to punch our phone number into this phone, to speak into the receiver, to say, ‘Hey, I’m heading home. Got the milk and peanut butter. Anything else?’

My mom was waiting. I took the insurance file and a thick stack of unopened envelopes that had been shoved in the to-do file.

I hadn’t got involved with the bills. Joe had his system in place when I moved in. Besides, I was a mess when it came to paperwork. My mother would tell me this was an opportunity for personal growth. Time to embrace paperwork. Time to stop blubbering and get home to Annie and Zach.

I walked down the stairs, waved, and thanked Gina. She nodded, her eyes still a bit puffy behind her wire-framed glasses. She’d recently returned to Elbow after leaving Our Sisters of Mercy. At age thirty-two, she’d realized she didn’t want to be a nun and was still reeling from that decision. Joe and I had privately called her his ex-sister cousin.

As I held the door open for my mom, I realized not one customer had come into the store while we’d been there, and it was noon. I knew it had been slow, but not that slow.

‘Find it?’ my mom asked as she backed the Jeep out.

I nodded. Within a couple of minutes we were pulling up the gravel drive, Callie running to meet us. A Ford Fiesta sat parked in my spot. My mom and I looked at each other and both lifted our eyebrows. Neither of us felt up for company, but people were being kind.

The kids’ shoes were set out in a neat line by the front door. How efficient of them, I thought, picking up one of Annie’s pink high-tops. They weren’t even muddy. Probably something they’d learned when they stayed at Lizzie’s. I guessed she might be the type who would have a hand-painted sign that said, mahalo for taking off your shoes. I’d been there so few times and so long ago, I couldn’t remember what their shoe policy was; besides, who was I to argue with a little less tracked-in dirt? But there on the other side of the umbrella stand was a pair of Kenneth Cole leather pumps. I’d never seen Marcella wear any heels higher than an inch. I opened the screen door and said in the cheeriest voice I could muster, ‘Banannie, Zachosaurus, I’m ho-ome!’ No one ran to greet me. No one shouted, Hi, Mommy.

I walked in and set the files on the desk and looked through the window to see if I’d missed them playing in the yard. Annie’s giggle spilled from their room. I walked down the hallway and opened the door. There, in our rocker, were Annie and Zach, sitting on Paige’s lap. Zach was brushing a whisk of her silky hair against his cheek. Paige’s arms looped in a fence around both of them; her hands held out an open book, like a gate. The book was by Dr Seuss, one that had been in the crate from the closet. The cover screamed at me: Are You My Mother?

‘I missed my plane,’ she said, closing the book and holding it face down. ‘Marcella should be back in a minute. She went to check on Auntie Sophia.’

I nodded, kept nodding. My body shook so hard that one of my knees buckled. A crow shrilled, Caw-caw-caw, through the still damp air, staking its claim on a favourite branch or fence post.

Annie grinned at me, but Zach had already slid off Paige’s lap and grabbed my leg. I picked him up, inhaled his fresh, loamy scent, now mixed with the increasingly familiar scent of Paige’s perfume — jasmine, I was pretty sure. And citrus. But it had echoes of Macy’s, not a garden or an orange grove.

My mother, who’d walked in behind me, placed her hand firmly on my back. ‘Hello,’ she said to Paige. ‘Will you be needing a taxi to the airport, then?’

Paige shook her head. ‘I’ve got the rental car.’ She looked at her watch. ‘And it’s just about time to go.’

That, I thought, is an understatement.

I said, ‘It can take a couple hours if you run into traffic… Where are you flying to?’ Siberia? Antarctica? The Moon?

‘Las Vegas. I left my card on the coffee table…’

Why the hell would I want your card?

‘… so the kids can call anytime.’

Why would they want to call you? They don’t even know you. They know the plumber better than they know you and they don’t call him.

She hugged Annie for an excruciatingly long minute. My mom raised her eyebrows again. The crows cawed again. The Corvus brachyrhynchos. Crows have a bad rap, but they’re highly intelligent, extremely adaptable birds, and I’m always defending them when people complain. Their calls all have many different meanings. I was pretty sure this one was sounding out a warning of some type. Paige finally let go of Annie, got up, and reached for Zach, whom I held a bit too tight. His smile was shy, but he went to her. ‘Bye, Zach.’ Her voice cracked again. Tears magnified her blue eyes, those eyes that looked so much like Annie’s. She kept them from spilling, intent, it seemed, on not making a scene. I gave her credit for that much.

‘Good-bye, Lady,’ Zach said.

She handed him back to me. Finally, finally, Paige stepped out the door, slipped into her high heels, and clicked down the porch stairs.

Her perfume stuck around. I followed Annie to the great room, which Joe had fondly dubbed the not-so-great room. She sat at the watery glass window and watched Paige drive away.

‘Banannie? Are you okay?’ I went to her and knelt beside her.

‘I… want… my… daddy,’ she said in a whisper.

‘I know, honey. I know.’ I held her, but she turned her head so her gaze stayed on the empty gravel river of driveway and the dust clouds Paige left behind. I didn’t know what to say about Paige. She’ll be back? I didn’t know what she was planning on doing… or being… for Annie and Zach.

Zach tore in the room. ‘Hey, mister!’ he said, pointing to my boots. ‘Shoes go outside. Come on, I’ll show ya.’

My mom raised her eyebrows once again. She could never have Botox; her chief mode of communication lay in her forehead. I said, ‘Hey, mister? I’m no mister, mister!’ He laughed. ‘And these boots were made for walking, not for sitting out on some old porch.’

He stood for a minute with his head tilted, looking up, pondering my statement. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ my little boy said, an expression he’d learned from his grandpa. Then he went outside and pulled on his Batman battery-powered tennies and stomped back into the house, flashing red lights with each step.

After we fed the kids reheated tuna casserole à la the Nardini family, according to the masking tape on the bottom of the glass pan, we set them up for their naps. The Are You My Mother? book lay in the rocking chair. I dropped it back in the crate, shoved the crate back into the closet, and read Little Bear instead. Neither of them said anything about the Dr Seuss book, and they were both asleep before I got six pages into Little Bear. They were as worn out by everything as I was. I tiptoed to the closet and plucked the other book out of the crate, took it outside, and threw it in the trash can.