Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

‘Cookies. Me want cookies.’ The sailors had jumped ship and were trying to make their eyes bulge, taking the glasses of milk from the kitchen counter and a couple of oatmeal squares. Our dog, Callie, a yellow Lab and husky mix who knew how to work her most forlorn expression, sat thumping her tail until I gave her a biscuit and let her out. I sipped my coffee and watched Annie and Zach shove cookies in their mouths, grunting, letting crumbs fly. This was the one thing Sesame Street taught them that I could have done without.

The sun beckoned us outside, so I asked them to hurry and get dressed, then went to pull on a pair of shorts and finally stick a load of darks into the washer. As I added the last pair of jeans, Zach ran in buck naked and held up his footed pyjamas. ‘I do it myself,’ he said. I was impressed he hadn’t left them in the usual heap on the floor, and I picked him up so he could drop in his contribution. His butt was cool against my arm. We watched until the agitator sucked the swirl of fire trucks and blue fleece below into the sudsy water. I set him down and he careened out, his feet slapping down the wood hall. Except for shoe-lace tying, which Zach was still a few years from, both kids had become alarmingly self-sufficient. Annie was more than ready for first grade, and now Zach for preschool, even if I wasn’t quite ready for them to go.

This would be a milestone year: Joe would save the sinking grocery store that had been in his family for three generations. I would go back to work, starting a new job in the fall as a guide for Fish and Wildlife. And Annie and Zach would zoom out the door each morning on their ever-growing limbs, each taking giant leaps along that ever-shortening path of their childhood.

When I first met them, Annie was three and Zach was six months. I had been on my way from San Diego to a new life, though I wasn’t sure where or what it would be. I’d stopped in the small, funky town of Elbow along the Redwoods River in Northern California. The town was named for its location on the forty-five-degree bend in the river, but locals joked that it was named for elbow macaroni because so many Italians lived there. I planned to get a sandwich and an iced tea, then maybe stretch my legs and walk down the path I’d read about to the sandy beach along the river, but a dark-haired man was locking up the market. A little girl squirmed out of his grasp while he tried to get the key in the lock and balance a baby in his other arm. She pulled loose and raced out towards me, into my legs. Her blonde head grazed my knees, and she laughed and reached her arms to me. ‘Up.’

‘Annie!’ the man called. He was lean, a bit dishevelled and anxious, but significantly easy on the eyes.

I asked him, ‘Is it okay?’

He grinned relief. ‘If you don’t mind?’ Mind? I scooped her into my arms and she started playing with my braid. He said, ‘The kid doesn’t have a shy bone in her body.’ I could feel her chubby legs secured around my hips, could smell Johnson’s baby shampoo, cut grass, wood smoke, a hint of mud. A whisper of grape juice-stained breath brushed my cheek. She’d held my braid tight in her fist but she hadn’t pulled.

Callie barked and, from the kitchen, I saw Frank Civiletti’s police cruiser. That was odd. Frank knew Joe wouldn’t be home. They’d been best friends since grade school, and they always talked over morning coffee at the store. I hadn’t heard Frank coming, but there he was, slowly heading up the drive, his tires popping gravel. Also odd. Frank never drove slowly. And Frank always turned his siren on when he made our turn from the main road. His ritual for the kids. I looked at the microwave clock: 8:53. Already? I picked up the phone, then set it down. Joe hadn’t called when he got to the store. Joe always called. ‘Here.’ I grabbed the egg baskets and handed them to the kids. ‘Check on the Ladies and bring us back some breakfast.’ I opened the kitchen door and watched them run down to the coop, waving and calling out, ‘Uncle Frank! Turn on your siren.’

But he didn’t; he parked the car. I stood in the kitchen. I stared at the compost bucket on the counter. Coffee grounds Joe had used that morning, the banana peel from his breakfast. The far edges of my happiness began to brown, then curl.

I heard Frank’s door open and shut, his footsteps on the gravel, on the porch. His tap on the front door’s window. Annie and Zach were busy collecting eggs at the coop. Zach let out a string of laughter, and I wanted to stop right there and wrap it around our life so we could keep it intact and whole. I forced myself out of the kitchen, down the hall, stepping over the toys still on the floor, seeing Frank through the paned watery glass stare down at a button on his uniform. Look up and give me your Jim Carrey grin. Just walk in, like you usually do, you bastard. Raid the fridge before you say hello. Now we stood with the door between us. He looked up with red-rimmed eyes. I turned, headed back down the hallway, heard him open the door.

‘Ella,’ he said, behind me. ‘Let’s sit down.’

‘No.’ His footsteps followed me. I waved him away without turning to see him. ‘No.’

‘Ella. It was a sleeper wave, out at Bodega Head,’ he said to my back. ‘It rose out of nowhere.’

He told me Joe was shooting the cliff out on First Rock. Witnesses said they shouted a warning, but he couldn’t hear them over the wind, the ocean. It knocked him over and took him clean. He was gone before anyone could move.

‘Where is he?’ I turned when Frank didn’t answer. I grabbed his collar. ‘Where?’

He glanced down again, then forced his eyes back on me. ‘We don’t know. He hasn’t shown up yet.’

I felt a small hope look up, start to rise. ‘He’s still alive. He is! I need to get out there. We need to go. I’ll call Marcella. Where’s the phone? Where are my shoes?’

‘Lizzie’s already on her way over to pick up the kids.’

I ran towards our bedroom, stepped on the brontosaurus, fell hard on my knee, pushed myself back up before Frank could help me.

‘Listen, El. I would not be saying any of this to you if I thought there was a chance he was alive. Someone even said they saw a spray of blood. We think he hit his head. He never came up for air.’ Frank said something about this happening every year, as if I were some out-of-towner. As if Joe were.

‘ This doesn’t happen to Joe.’

Joe could swim for miles. He had two kids that needed him. He had me. I dug in the closet for my hiking boots. Joe was alive and I had to find him. ‘A little blood? He probably scraped his arm.’ I found the boots, pulled the comforter off the bed. He would be freezing. I grabbed the binoculars from the hall tree. I opened the screen door and stepped out on the porch, tripping on the dragging blanket. I called back, ‘Am I driving myself? Or are you coming?’

Frank’s wife, Lizzie, loaded Zach into their Radio Flyer wagon with their daughter, Molly, while Annie stuck her arm through the handle and shouted through her cupped hands, ‘We’re taking the rowboat to shore. Watch for pirates.’

I waved and tried to sound cheerful. ‘Got it. Thanks, Lizzie.’ She nodded, solemn. Lizzie Civiletti was not my friend; she’d told me that, soon after I came to town. And yet neither was she unkind. She would protect the kids from any telltale signs of panic. As much as I wanted to go to them, to gather them up to me, I smiled, I waved again, I blew kisses.

Frank drove the winding road with his lights spinning circles. I closed my eyes, didn’t look at the rolling hills I knew would be shimmering, dotted with what Joe called the ‘Extremely Happy California Cows.’ He’s fine. He’s fine! He’s disoriented. He hit his head. He’s not sure where he is. A concussion, maybe. He’s wandering the beach at Salmon Creek. That’s it! The wave pulled him out and dashed him down the coast a ways, but there he is. He’s talking to some high school boys. They have surfboards. Dude. Did you ride that gnarly wave? They’ve built a fire even though the signs prohibit it. They offer him beer and hot dogs. They forgot the buns, but here’s mustard. He’s famished. He has a flash of memory. It all comes back to him.