Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

But I turned back to my task, took another step, studied another photo. See Paige and Annie in matching Easter dresses. See Joe sleeping. I wanted to crawl in next to him, but I wasn’t the one who’d taken the picture. It was taken before I knew Joe existed. When he loved Paige and Paige loved him. She loved him enough to want to capture him sleeping peacefully, his lips parted, his hair flattened on one side; looking the same way he had on mornings when I had watched him sleeping and loved him too.

But see this: Annie, Zach, Joe, and me, in that very bed. It had been morning, the bed was messy, our hair was messy. Joe had set up the tripod and climbed in. Annie hit him with a pillow just as the camera clicked.

Outside, the clouds broke open all at once, and rain pounded the gravel, battered the porch. I was on my fourth round of the path and had left my third message to Paige when someone knocked on the front door. On the other side of the door’s window, Clem Silver held up his hand. Clem Silver at my house. Clem Silver never visited people at their homes, even when he was invited. But now that the question of my emotional and mental health was displayed in paths of photographs winding from room to room, there he was, first in line to bear witness. I opened the door.

He had one of those seventies clear bubble umbrellas, which he collapsed and set on the porch. ‘I heard,’ he said. ‘And… well, I’m sorry.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And I brought you this.’ He waved a green garbage bag. I held the door open.

‘Ignore the, ah, mess.’

He stepped inside, but there was nowhere to walk, so we stood close to each other in the hallway by the door. He smelled of his cigarettes and turpentine. He stared at his shoes. ‘I had — have — two daughters.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘When my wife left, I was so mad, and she was so mad. She went to Florida, and I can’t think of a place I’d hate more to live, except, maybe…’ He looked up and gave me a little smile. ‘Las Vegas. So I stayed put and she talked bad about me and those girls grew up without me. And I don’t feel good about that. Tears me up just about every day. I love it here, you know that. But I acted like a barnacle and I wish I’d been a bird.’

I kept nodding, trying to picture shy Clem surrounded by a houseful of females.

‘It’s none of my business. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. Or maybe I am. But I thought, if you ever decide to — well, you’ll have it. And if you don’t need it, that’s okay too.’

‘Do you want me to open it?’

‘I’m gonna go now. And then you can if you want. And then we’ll just see.’ He started to pat me on the shoulder but I hugged him, and then he was gone.

I looked in the bag and saw a roll of paper. I unrolled it. It was another map, hand painted, more tans and browns than greens, but still a work of art. It was a map of Las Vegas.

The phone finally rang. I made a run back along the path, Hold on, kids, to catch the phone just before the answering machine got it.

But it was David. ‘Ella? Thank God you picked up. Listen. Remember when I told you Real Simple magazine wanted to do a story — a big spread — on you and the store?’

‘Sort of… I thought it was Sunset. ’

‘Well, they might too. But this is more about you and the store. A human interest thing. Anyway. I can’t believe this got by me, we’d confirmed last week, but with everything that’s been going on, they called again yesterday, but I forgot to check the messages on the store —’

‘What got by you?’

‘They’re here.’

‘Here?’

‘At the store. They love it. Totally gaga over every inch of it. We need you down here pronto. They want to interview and take pictures of you and the — Hey, can we get the kids back for a day or two?’

‘What?’

‘Listen, I need you to pull through for me. I can’t tell you how important this is, what an op-por-tun-i- ty. We need this, Ella. You’re the one who got me into this thing in the first place, remember. I can’t hold them off any longer. They like the angle of a woman rising above her pain, the lemonade out of lemons, which fits with the whole grocery-store-into-picnic theme. Do that cool thing with your hair. See you in a few minutes.’

‘David!’ But he’d hung up. ‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

I don’t think I’d ever felt worse. Or looked worse. I peered in the mirror. I still had Paige’s robe on over my clothes. Eyes still swollen. Hair matted like some ridiculous new invention. Carrot-flavoured cotton candy. Not exactly the strong woman rising above her pain.

I wanted to curl up with my pictures and wait for my phone to ring, to hear, ‘Hi, Mommy.’ But David needed me. It was the least I could do after I’d screwed up everyone’s life. I changed into my sage green flowered dress, the one Joe always loved; he’d called me ‘flower child’ when I wore it. I spritzed water on my carrot cotton candy and pulled it up into the pretty clip the kids gave me the previous Mother’s Day. I washed my face and even put on makeup and silver and jade earrings.

As I stepped gingerly over the photos, cutting from path to path, Sergio’s booklet caught my eye. I stuck it in my pocket.

The rain had stopped as quickly as it started, and the sun was already working on drying out the store’s puddled parking lot, which swarmed with activity. A woman with short, dark hair, dressed in cream slacks and a crisp white blouse, a couple of guys with camera equipment, a younger woman in jeans carrying two oversize vases of flowers, all filed up the porch steps. I followed them in. David introduced me to the photographers, who reminded me of Joe, the way they carried their cameras and lights with such confidence.

David mentioned to the dark-haired woman, ‘Ella, this is Blaire Markham. She’s writing the article for Real Simple. ’

Blaire smiled and extended her hand, which felt cool in my clammy one. ‘You have quite an inspiring story. I am so sorry about the loss of your husband.’

‘Thanks.’ I felt sweat beads breaking on my upper lip.

‘We like to feature women who defy odds, who carve out a unique life for themselves that truly reflects their personality. That’s why we’ve chosen to write about you.’

I nodded, kept nodding, kept myself from letting out a big, fat HA! Joe Sr and Marcella walked in, wearing their church clothes. They stood back by the board games, Marcella’s arms folded across her chest, her black patent leather purse hanging from the crook of her elbow.

David introduced them to Blaire.

‘Great!’ she said. ‘I’d love to get a multigenerational shot in front of the store, so we could lay it out next to this one.’ She walked over and tapped the frame of the photo of Joe and Joe Sr and Sergio that hung on the wall by Joe’s apron. ‘Where are your children? We like to include lots of pictures of the family in the spreads we do at Real Simple, since they’re always a central part of the story.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ I say. ‘In fact, it’s Real Complicated. ’ I let out a nervous laugh. The room fell silent, and while Blaire waited for me to explain, Marcella said, ‘Multigenerational, my foot. Ella’s not my daughter. And she’s not my grandchildren’s mother.’

David said, ‘Ma. That’s not fair.’

‘It may not be fair, but it’s the truth. What is she even doing here? This store is for my grandchildren, who no longer belong to her. For a woman who’s so bent on telling the truth all of a sudden, she forgot a few very important details. If you ask me.’