Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

‘No. I don’t. But I like to think he was on his way to a more… I mean, as Joe was building a life with you, he was getting over his anger at Paige. If Joe had lived, I’m certain he would have seen that shutting Paige out completely wasn’t good for Annie and Zach. You know? It was the most convenient thing at first. Actually, it was his only choice at first because that’s what she told him she wanted. I get that. And I feel for you, Ella, left with all the fallout. I do not envy you.’

Before I left, Lizzie gave me a box of soap, including two bars from her children’s line, Milk & Honey Bunny, and a bottle of bubble bath called Here Comes Bubble, to take home for the kids. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is not your mother’s soap.’

I walked home, waving at the cars that honked hello without lifting my head to see who it was. Someday Annie and Zach would have questions about why Paige left. Because they were kids, they would feel that somehow it was their fault. Annie probably already felt it, a thorn of blame she couldn’t quite identify, like a tiny thistle woven into her sock. Those letters might tell them the real story. If I didn’t give them to the court, but let the kids read them when they were older? They would know I’d withheld evidence in order to prevent Paige from having custody. But if I did hand the letters over to the court, if I did the right thing? The judge could very well still rule in my favour. In Annie and Zach’s favour. I believed he would still think that staying with me was in their best interest… no matter what the letters said.

Still. I would be risking everything.

I held a bar of soap up to my nose and sniffed. Not my mother’s soap. Not my grandmother’s, either. There was yet another layer to the lesson she’d taught me that day.

I don’t know how long I’d hid in my grandmother’s basement after her slap, but eventually hunger overtook my disgrace, forcing me upstairs to her kitchen. Neighbours were putting out plates of ham sandwiches with bowls of potato and macaroni salad. Grandma walked in carrying a tray of peanut butter cookies. When she saw me, she set down the tray, took me by the arm, and marched me back down to the basement. She pulled me over to the utility sink, picked up an orange bar of Dial soap, and held it under the running water. ‘I hate to do this, dear, but you have got to learn that certain things are inappropriate for a young lady to say. This is the only way I know of that will make you remember. It’s unpleasant, but a valuable lesson, all the same. Now, open your mouth.’ I pressed my lips tight, but she forced the soap through them. It scraped against my teeth while I gagged, eyes tearing, the waxy fire of it searing my throat and my mind too. The burning taste seemed to go on forever, but not nearly as long as the burning shame. Afterwards, she handed me an enamel cup of water and a pink towel from the dryer. ‘Now. That’s done. Do you understand why I needed to do that?’

I nodded, though I realized that I understood nothing about my life and the people I loved. She pulled an embroidered handkerchief from the sleeve of her white cardigan and wiped the tears from my cheeks. ‘I will see you upstairs in a few minutes.’ And she climbed heavily up the steps. When I reappeared in the kitchen, she said, ‘Why, there’s our Ella. Help yourself, dear.’

I took a peanut butter cookie and she bent down and kissed the top of my head, and that was it. She never mentioned the incident again. And I certainly didn’t, either. Until the conversation with my mother just days before, I’d set it back in some far corner of my memory. There was now the undeniable fact that I’d lived much of my life according to that one lesson: Look the other way. Don’t ask. Ever. And good God, don’t say what you really think.

That night, the night before we were to sign the stipulation that would give me custody, Annie and Zach climbed into the tub while I poured in the milky bubble bath, unwrapped the bars and gave them each one. I sat on the floor and reached over and lathered them up — their pale, soft hair, their sweaty necks, their torsos and arms and legs, the bend of each elbow and each knee. I knew every freckle, every one of their scars and where each had come from, and what the weather had been like each fateful day. Rinsing their sudsy heads back in the water, I soaked in their giggles when I washed between their toes.

Zach held up his foot and asked me the question that he asked every bath: ‘Mommy? Are you getting the stink out of my stinky dogs?’

‘Yep.’

‘Now they’re sweetie dogs?’

‘Kissable sweetie dogs!’ I grabbed his foot and kissed his toes while he squealed and tried to pull free from my grasp.

While Annie and Zach shivered, I dried their heads and bodies with warm towels from the dryer, then held pj’s out for them to step into, aligning their feet into the footsies, buttoning tops, snapping snaps, combing down squeaky-clean hair. They climbed up into my bed that night, and I held them, and I held them, and I held them.

Around 3.00 a.m., I slipped out of bed, stoked up the woodstove, retrieved the letters from the closet shelf, and tiptoed back out to the not-so-great room to discover exactly what it was that Paige Capozzi had written to my husband and children after she had left them on that rainy Sunday, more than three years before.

February 11, 1996

Dear Joe,

I have to leave. I can’t keep pretending to be what I’m not. You know I love Annie and Zach. You know I love you. But there’s this other part of me… I’m scared. It’s like I’m my mother down deep inside. But you won’t listen. Dr Blaine won’t listen.

This is the hardest thing. It’s not fair to you or to them for me to stay. I’m not coming back. I should not have become a mother in the first place. It was crazy to try. But I am crazy.

All the rain makes me feel even crazier. It’s the sound of water sputtering, pressing me down, all day every day. Las Vegas is dry. It’s warm and light here.

Please don’t tell the kids I’ll be back. You all need to start a new life without me. Your family will help you. Keep doing the things that come naturally to you, the things that seem to evade me. Play with them, kiss them, hug them, and please never let them go.

Remember that I tried to do better.

∼Paige

This was the letter Joe had told me about. He hadn’t lied. There was a card addressed to Annie and Zach that had a bear on the front with the words, You know how much I love you? And when I opened it the arms unfolded a foot on each side. This much! And so I’m sending you this bear hug. It was signed Mama.

April 11, 1996

Dear Joe,

Please stop calling. I know you’re trying. This isn’t what I wanted, either. I cancelled my Dr’s appt. I can’t get up today. Something’s always pressing me down. Besides, it’s not like the doctor can do an exorcism on me and get rid of my mother. It’s not like he can go back and change my DNA.

What if something had happened to Annie or Zach? Think about that, Joe. Look that in the face. It changes everything. I think I can live with leaving. But not if I’d hurt them. What if I’d done something like my mother did?

∼Paige

July 2, 1996

Dear Joe,

I know for certain I can never go back. Not to that dark, depressing kitchen that was getting smaller and darker. Soon I would be crouched in a corner on the floor.

Thank you for not calling again. I can’t be with Annie and Zach… and hearing about them is too hard right now.

I have to say good-bye for good now. I’m sorry. I have an appointment with a doctor tomorrow. Aunt Bernie is taking good care of me. Someday, when Annie and Zach are old enough to understand, tell them their mama loves them.