Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

Callie followed us, circling around Paige’s rental car, while the rest of the family waited on the porch. Annie’s shoulders shook in a silent attempt not to cry, but when Zach saw her clenched face, he began howling. Paige yelled over him, ‘They’ll be fine! We just need to go!’ You know nothing, I wanted to say, but didn’t. I buckled the kids into their car seats as I had always done, and I kissed them, hugged them, wiped their tears and snot with my sleeves. I told them I would see them very soon and that I would call them that night.

Paige and I both lifted our hands, barely, and she started the car, Zach screaming now, ‘I… want… my… MOMMY,’ over and over as we stood on the porch, silent, waving, listening to his screams get smaller and smaller until the screams, and Zach, and Annie, were gone.

Everyone else filed down the stairs. Frank and Lizzie and Lucy all offered to stay, but I only shook my head. Joe Sr turned to me, his lip trembling, and said, ‘At least you could have put Zach’s shoes on for him. No man should have to leave his family in his slippers.’ I didn’t know why the shoes were so important to Marcella and Joe Sr, but that was the least of my worries at the moment. David hugged me, but the hug was weak armed and quick, with a pat on the back — nothing like the Italian embraces we usually shared. David told me, ‘Take some time away from the store. We’ll cover for you.’ I knew they needed time away from me too. Marcella left without looking at me.

When they were gone, I walked directly to the kids’ room. Callie followed. I closed the door behind us. I threw myself on Annie’s bed, burrowed my face into her sweet-smelling pillow, and I howled just like Zach, his pain-filled screams that I could not comfort wracking through me. Callie yelped as if in pain too. Sobs came from my core; I could not stop them. I cried without ceasing. I tried Paige’s cell phone three times, but she didn’t pick up.

Callie’s bark woke me, followed by a hard, persistent knock on the front door. Disoriented, I grabbed for my alarm clock that wasn’t where it should be, remembered that I was in Annie’s bed, still in my clothes, and then remembered why. The knocking continued, and I let myself think, for the instant I climbed out of bed, that it was Paige, back with Annie and Zach, to tell me she’d made a horrible mistake. Instead it was the UPS man with a delivery. It was a box addressed to the kids from Paige, sent a week before. Instead of signing for it, I scratched out the address and wrote Return to sender.

Paige still didn’t answer. I left a message. I left four messages in the next four hours. I got three calls that day; not one from the kids. They were from the three other people on the planet who were still speaking to me: my mom, Lizzie, and Lucy. I screened them and didn’t pick up; I didn’t want to tie up the line in case the kids were trying to call me. My mom and Lizzie said they were thinking of me, to call if I wanted to talk. Lucy said she was coming over after work the next day, no questions asked.

The only responsibilities I had were to feed Callie, the chickens, and Thing One and Thing Two, clean the coop and the litter box, and pull up weeds. I did these things. Callie kept trying to nudge me into a walk, bringing me her leash, cocking her head with the sad eyes I usually could not resist. But I didn’t have the energy, and I didn’t want to see anyone in town.

I walked through the house, holding the sleeping kittens like babies in the crooks of my arms, and everything I saw stabbed me. The pictures of the kids, their toys, their art projects. The clay vase I kept on the bookshelves. Annie had made it for me in preschool. It had said Happy Mother’s Day in macaroni letters, and I’d always loved it. The M had fallen off and left an indent soon after she brought it home, but only then, on that day after they’d gone, did I notice that without the M it read, Happy other’s Day.

The refrigerator kicked in humming, the clock ticked, a log fell in the woodstove. I sat on the couch and channel surfed for hours until I happened upon TV Land — solely devoted to old shows from the sixties and seventies. I watched The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Room 222. These were the shows I’d watched religiously after my father had died, wondering why my mom couldn’t be more like Shirley Partridge, why my parents hadn’t had more children so that I’d have a group of siblings I could start a rock band with too.

I let out Callie and thought about calling the kids again, but it was nine o’clock. They were fast asleep in their new rooms, their first day without me, and we hadn’t talked. I had to wait until morning. I let Callie back in and she lay on the floor next to the couch. I fell asleep with the TV on — Mister Ed — and woke in the morning to I Dream of Jeannie.

I repeated my short list of chores, thought about cleaning the house, but, really, why? The day stretched before me: Room 222, Gilligan’s Island, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Green Acres, That Girl, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. When Callie was a puppy, still chewing up everything in sight, Joe and I decided our life was less Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and more Please Don’t Eat the Porch.

I tried the kids again. Still no one answered. Finally Paige called, wanting to let me know they’d got home late last night, that their plane had been delayed.

‘Can I talk to the kids?’ I said.

‘I know this is hard for you. It’s also really hard for them.’

Zach was crying in the background, ‘I… want… my… mommy! I… want… my… mommy!’

‘Ella, I really don’t think it would be a good idea to talk to them right now. Give us a little time to adjust. They miss you, and talking to them will just make it worse. We need to work through this, the three of us.’

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ I said. ‘Let me talk to him. I can help him feel better. ’

‘I don’t think so,’ Paige said. ‘Look. What you did in that courtroom was noble. It took courage. But now I’m asking you to give us some space.’

‘Who the hell do you think you are?’

‘I know who I am… I’m their mother.’ And she hung up.

‘Bitch!’ I screamed into the phone, to no one, and hurled it at the wall.

It wasn’t enough. I felt as frantic as a cat on acid. What could I do? Zach was crying! Joe’s tripod was still propped up in the corner of the not-so-great room as some kind of makeshift memorial. I grabbed it and headed outside, still in my pyjamas. I swung the tripod in the air like it was a bat and I was next up. I walked over to Joe’s truck. His beloved Green Hornet. I planted my feet. I swung as hard as I could, smashing the windshield, smashing it into oblivion.

What had I expected from Paige? Overflowing gratitude? Forgiveness? A certain willingness to work things out? Yes, yes, and yes. I had told Gwen Alterman that I didn’t believe Paige should be shut out of Annie’s and Zach’s lives. I thought Paige would believe the same about me. I had mistaken her for the Paige who wrote the letters three years ago — a desperate, vulnerable, hurting mother. But even Lizzie had noticed, there was an old Paige, and now this new Paige: who believed in the order of things and their placement, who seemed convinced that the placement of Annie and Zach should be in her home, with none of my personal chi flowing through the door, or even through the phone wires. She’d cleaned out the clutter of having me as their stepmother . (Who needs two when one will do the job? Decide which box — Give Away or Throw Away, and then don’t look back.)