Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

My heart beat loudly in my ears. She knew the store was struggling three years ago? ‘Basically?’ I said. ‘That she’s not being truthful.’

Janice Conner smiled patiently. ‘I know you have a different perspective, and now’s your opportunity to tell your side of the story.’

‘Nevertheless,’ I remembered to say. ‘There were no letters. She never sent one letter, except for the one she left at the house, telling Joe she wanted out and that he made a great parent, but she couldn’t do it.’ That’s it. I didn’t tell them that I’d looked through the boxes of Joe’s things, just in case. But still, I’d found nothing.

Paige shook her head. ‘I sent cards and letters. Many of them,’ she whined. She looked at me. ‘Where the hell were you?’

Janice Conner cleared her throat. ‘I need to remind you both to keep your statements and questions directed at me. I do have a question for you, Paige. Did you ever send any of those cards and letters certified mail?’ The room fell quiet for the first time. I looked over at Paige, who shook her head slowly, barely, looking at her hands in her lap. ‘That’s unfortunate. Because then we wouldn’t be relying on a she-said’ — she smiled — ‘she-said scenario. Paige, do you think it’s possible that the letters were never sent?’

Paige said no, but her face began to redden.

Janice continued. ‘I’ve done that before, thought I sent something only to find it tucked in the bill drawer. You were on medications, going through a difficult time. Could you have given them to a nurse or orderly? Your psychiatrist? Or maybe stuck them in your suitcase to mail later? I’m not suggesting you didn’t write them, only that —’

‘No!’ Paige almost shouted. Her face was flushed a vivid pink. Then, quieter, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, she said, ‘You think they all tricked me?’

‘Clearly, whether or not the letters were sent is not something we can resolve here today. So I’d like to steer the discussion back to Ella. Ella, what can you tell me about why Annie and Zach should remain in your care?’

I swallowed, thinking of Annie and Zach standing on stools making meatballs that morning with Marcella, apron strings doubled around their small frames. ‘Because I’m the only mother they’ve known. Because we have a home, and a large, caring family around us. And a loving community, with lots of friends. It’s great they might go to Paige’s for a weekend and have a blast, but the truth is, they’re sad. At my home, they’re allowed to be sad, because I’m sad too. I don’t see their father’s death as some kind of sick opportunity.

‘Yes, I’ve had a few bad days. But I’m grieving. I’m not going crazy. We’re nothing alike. Nothing.’

I looked up at Janice, who was not writing as she had been when Paige talked. She flipped a page back. ‘Can you explain the behaviour Paige described, her concern about drug use?’

I told her how the doctor prescribed Xanax, that I’d never taken anything like that before and took a few too many one day. ‘But I haven’t taken any since. I threw them away.’ Though God knew I could have used one right that minute.

‘Are you sure? Can you verify this with a letter from your doctor? Co-workers?’

‘Yes, I’m sure. I’ve never been addicted to anything.’ I explained, too, about the almost-car-accident, and why I’d yelled. ‘These are things Paige has never experienced because she left.’

Paige uncrossed her legs, squared her shoulders. ‘Fortunately,’ she said, ‘that was not the end of my story. It took a lot of hard work to pull myself up from that, and there was only one source for me to pull from: my love for my children. I am their mother. A mother who made mistakes, but also still thinks I made the right decision to leave when I did… Because I loved them then and I love them now. I can now give them a better financially and more emotionally stable environment than she can, and I am their mother. They should be with me.’

Janice was writing down everything Paige said.

‘You’re writing down everything she says, but it’s not true.’ My voice was on the rise. I took a breath, forced myself to speak calmly. ‘Paige is someone new in the kids’ lives. She buys them things. They have no strong emotional bond with her. Zach doesn’t even know her! She’s preying on Annie because Annie is extremely vulnerable. I’m worried what would happen to them if they were moved away from their home right now. Their mother left when they were very, very young. They’ve lost their dad. For good. And now, if they lose me too… and their grandparents, uncle, everyone. Annie and Zach will be devastated.’

She turned to Paige. ‘What, exactly, does a home stager do?’

‘Well, I interview —’

‘She takes out all the personal memories and treasures that make a house a home and puts in a few pieces of carefully placed trendy furniture to make it look like someone else lives there, possibly even the potential buyer. She fakes it. She fakes home. And she’s good at it.’

‘At least I don’t expect the children to live in a tiny, cluttered shack.’

‘Ha. A shack. Right. You make it sound like it’s tar papered.’ I looked at Janice and took another deep breath. ‘It’s actually a lovely, 1930s remodelled cottage the kids’ great-grandpa built.’ I went on about Elbow, their relatives, their friends, their pets — anything I could think of, rambling now.

Janice Conner held the clipboard up in the air, like a stop sign. ‘Okay. Well. I can see that we’re not going to come to any kind of agreement between you today. Now it’s my turn: I want you to both listen to me. I want you, for the sake of those two children who have already been through so much, to stop this bickering. You cannot demean the other person in front of the kids. It will hurt them profoundly.’ She looked at Paige, then at me. ‘This is a tough one. Is there any chance either of you might be willing to move?’

‘No,’ we both said in unison. It was the one thing we could agree on.

I sat in the Jeep in the courthouse parking lot, talking to Gwen Alterman on my cell phone, blotting the black rivers on my face with balled-up tissue. Gwen assured me I was not the first person to insult the opposing party in mediation. ‘Mediators are used to it. They hear it every day.’

‘But you said —’

‘That was the ideal. It would have been great if you could have stayed on course one hundred percent, but it sounds like you didn’t do as badly as you’re thinking.’

‘No. I did. I was terrible. I wouldn’t grant custody to me.’

‘Look. Go home. Be with your kids. Make that store a success. We won’t know anything for a week or two. Try not to think about it.’

But I thought about it, and thought about it. I thought about the fact that Joe had told Paige, or Paige had instinctively known the way wives do, that the store was struggling. I thought about how Paige had said she’d requested to see the kids. ‘Where the hell were you?’ she’d asked. I wondered about that, at least regarding the store. I was sure she was lying about the letters. I would have seen them, would have heard snippets of phone conversations, some thing. Joe wouldn’t have been able to hide that too.

I hadn’t been much of a praying woman, but I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Please, somehow, make Janice Conner see that the kids should be with me. Please, please don’t take them away. And if Paige lost her marbles again? That wouldn’t be entirely a bad thing… I knew that praying for someone to go crazy couldn’t be winning me any heavenly points, or karmic points, or points on my own side of mental health, but I felt desperate. I cringed whenever I thought of the mediation, of my own stabs at Paige and my incompetent explanation of my ‘bad days’. Of Paige’s words, ‘Instead, he met her.’ Instead of what? Reconciliation? A different ending? A change from the direction that ultimately led to Joe’s death?