The Underside of Joy. Seré Prince Halverson
Zach. You’ve grown so big.’
I heard Marcella mutter next to me, ‘Yeah. Children grow quite a bit in three years, lady.’
Joe Sr said, ‘What’s she – Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ He reached his arm over Marcella’s shoulders as they turned and walked away.
I thought about telling Paige my name. Hi, I’m Ella, Zach and Annie’s mother. Like we were contestants on What’s My Line? I said nothing. People gathered. Joe’s relatives, excluding his parents, all took their turns saying reserved, polite hellos to her, but you’d think it was a family of Brits, not Italians. David stood next to me and said, ‘Why, nice to finally see you, Paige. You’re looking quite radiant . . . ,’ and then under his breath, he whispered to me, ‘for a funeral.’
Aunt Kat, who always acted like an entire welcoming committee bound up in one tiny woman, did manage to say, ‘Come to the house. We’re all going to the house.’ Everyone turned to me.
David said, ‘How hospitable of you, Aunt Kat, to invite Paige to Ella’s home for her.’
I felt my mouth turn up in a smile; I heard myself say to Paige, ‘Yes, of course, please do.’ By then she’d set down Annie, who stood between us looking back and forth, like a net judge in a tennis match. My heels sank into the grass.
Paige said, ‘That would be lovely. My flight doesn’t leave until tomorrow. Thank you.’
I didn’t want to know anything about Paige – not where her flight was returning her to, not what she did for a living, not if she had more children, and if so, not if she would hang around this time to help raise them. But okay. She was leaving. She would stop by the house for an hour at most to pay her respects to a man she had clearly not respected while he was alive, and then she would drive off, and by tomorrow she would fly far, far away, back to the Land of Mothers Who Left.
Gil and David drove the kids and me home. David turned around to say something, then looked at Annie and Zach leaning into my sides and evidently decided to shut up and face front. I stared at the oval scar on the back of Gil’s domed head, wondering how long it had been hiding under his hair before he’d shaved it all off. Was the scar from a childhood wound, from a bike accident in his teens, or had it happened more recently? A quarrel with a crazy lover, before he’d found David?
Annie sighed and said, ‘She’s pretty!’
Annie was three when Paige left. How much could she possibly remember? I asked her, ‘Do you remember her, Banannie?’
Annie nodded. ‘She still smells good too.’
She remembered her scent. Of course. I’d inhaled every one of Joe’s recently worn T-shirts, grateful now for my tendency to let laundry pile up. I sunk my face into his robe every time I walked by where it hung in the bathroom, dabbed his aftershave on my wrists. Of course Annie remembered.
At the house I kept my distance from Paige. It was easy to tell where she went, because the floor seemed to tilt in her direction, as if we were on a raft and I was made of feathers and she was made of gold. Annie came up and leaned against me, and I smoothed back her hair, ran my fingers through her ponytail. Then she was off, taking Paige by the hand, leading her into the kids’ room. My fiercest ally, Lucy, whispered in my ear, ‘That woman’s got nerve,’ but no one else broached the subject. At funerals, it seems most people leave old grudges at home.
And yet. I certainly didn’t want to chat it up with Joe’s ex-wife on the day of his funeral, or any other day. What did she want? Why was she here? Annie kept dividing her time between the two of us, as if she felt some sort of obligation when she should have been thinking of no one other than her six-year-old self and her daddy. Zach wore his path between Marcella, my mom, and me.
Once I walked around a corner to find Paige and Frank’s wife, Lizzie, embracing, crying. My face went hot, and I whirled back around to the crowd in the kitchen. Even though Frank had been Joe’s best friend since eighth grade, I had been in Frank and Lizzie’s house only a handful of times. She and Paige had been close friends. And so, she’d explained to me the first time I met her, she and I would not be. When I’d reached out to shake her hand, she held mine in both of hers and said, ‘You seem like a nice person. But Paige is my best bud. I hope you understand.’ And then she’d turned and walked away, joining in another conversation. Since then, we’d greeted each other, made a few stabs at small talk about the kids, but never once had a real conversation. Joe and I had never so much as had dinner with Frank and Lizzie, always just Frank. Everyone else in Elbow had welcomed me, but Lizzie’s rejection reared at times, chaffing, a sharp pebble in a perfectly fitting shoe.
I fixed Annie and Zach paper plates of food, but it wasn’t long before they started showing signs of utter fatigue; Zach lay across my lap, sucking his thumb, holding his Bubby, his name for his beloved turquoise bunny that had long lost all its stuffing, and Annie was amped up, running in circles, which she frequently did right before she passed out. ‘Come on, you two. Tell everyone good night and I’ll tuck you in.’
‘No!’ Annie whined. ‘I’m not tired.’
‘Honey, you’re exhausted.’
‘Excuse me? Are you me or am I me?’ She had her hand on her jutted hip, and the other finger pointed to her chest. Paige peeked around the corner.
I took a deep breath. Annie could sometimes act like a six-year-old adolescent. The truth was, we were all exhausted. ‘You are you. And I am me. And me is Mommy. As in Mom.’ And I pointed to my own chest. ‘Me.’ I stood up. ‘And what Mom-me says, you do.’
She laughed. I sighed relief. ‘Good one!’ she said, delighted. ‘You got me on that one.’ I looked over to see Paige turning away. The kids made their good-night rounds, Paige hugging each of them and crouching down, talking to them. God, it was weird to see her there, in our house, chatting with our people, holding our children.
In the old rocker in their room, the kids climbed onto my lap and I read to them and stayed until they fell asleep, which was only about five minutes. I noticed a crate of old books that I’d stuck in the back of the closet, now sitting by the rocker. Had the kids dragged that out, looking for something? Most of them were books they’d outgrown or just got bored with, but maybe they seemed new to them again. Or maybe Annie had shown them to Paige.
I slipped out, quietly closing the door. David handed me a shot of Jack Daniel’s and whispered, ‘She left. She’s outta here.’
I wasn’t much of a Jack Daniel’s drinker, but I raised the shot and gulped it, then grabbed Joe’s down jacket and went outside. The fog had unfurled, chilling the air and sending home everyone but the closest friends and family, who had crowded inside, looking at photo albums and getting drunk. Through the picture window I watched them, a portrait of a family enduring; the warm lamplight surrounded them like soft, old worn-in love.
I pulled on Joe’s jacket and headed for the garden. I wanted the company of tomatoes, of scallions, of kale. I craved lying down between their rows, burying my face in their fragrant, damp dirt. Maybe later I’d go down to the redwood circle and lie there, in the middle of that dark arboreal cathedral, Our Lady of Sequoia sempervirens. Joe had told me that the Pomo Indians believed that on a day in October, the forests could talk, that they would give answers to the people’s wishes. But October was still a long way off.
Lucy came running up behind me. ‘No wandering off alone.’
‘Pray tell, why not?’
‘You need a friend. And a good bottle of wine. Even better, a friend with her own vineyard.’ She held up a bottle of wine without a label; the designer was still working on it.
‘Okay, but let me bum a cigarette.’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t have any.’
‘Liar. You’re PMSing.’ I’d kicked a vicious habit fifteen years before in Advanced Biology at Boston U when they showed us a smoker’s lung. I’d transformed into a typical ex-smoker: a zealot who self-righteously preached