Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

‘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 like 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.

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.