‘My brother,’ Joe Sr said, ‘he died in that war. A man gives his son, but he’s treated like the enemy. And you know what my father did? The Fourth of July, after he was released, he threw the biggest celebration this town had ever seen. That’s what started Elbow’s tradition. He said, “Let them try to call me an enemy. I’ll be the best goddamn patriot this country has ever seen.”’
David said, ‘You’ve gotta love that. I always thought you and Grandpa decorated for the Fourth with more flourish than any gay man ever has.’
Marcella leaned against Joe Sr, the tears and sobs taking over. ‘We’re cursed.’
He stroked her shoulder. ‘Joe Jr, and now Annie and Zach . . .’ Joe Sr’s voice trailed off. His eyes went moist.
I said, ‘Annie and Zach are not dead.’
He shook his head. ‘I know, honey. But they’re gone. Taken from us. They used the word custody with our fathers too, taken into custody. And now our government decides this too?’
We sat in silence. Blaire Markham stood. ‘Clearly, this was bad timing. As far as I’m concerned, everything said here was off the record. Unless’ – she looked directly at Joe Sr and Marcella – ‘you change your minds. Here’s my card if that’s the case. It’s an important story, and I hope you’ll consider telling it.’
After she and the photographers left, the four of us sat around the table, nibbling on the cookies, tired from it all but becoming more and more easy with one another. There were hugs and apologies, and I knew I had to tell them what I wanted to do.
I’d been holding a question as I’d walked my crazy labyrinth. Did the kids need Paige? My answer had come. It was yes. But I’d held another question too. Did the kids still need me, now that they had Paige? I knew that answer too. And so I said to David, ‘I don’t want to bail on you. But do you think you could cover things for a few weeks? I want to fix this. I want to go to Las Vegas.’
‘Of course I want you to bring Annie and Zach home. But Ella? Is there a chance in hell?’
‘Look.’ I turned to Marcella and Joe Sr. ‘You didn’t read her letters. She really did feel like she had to leave, that she had no choice. She didn’t want to walk out on Annie and Zach . . . or Joe, either. She was very ill. Her thinking was muddled. But she did what she thought was best. And then she was shut out. Shunned from her home. She couldn’t see her kids.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Not unlike your fathers.’
Joe Sr sat up. ‘Don’t you ever –’
‘Joseph. Stop. She’s right. This has all gone on long enough.’ She touched his rough cheek. ‘I just want my grandbabies back.’
I only packed a few large suitcases and two boxes of the kids’ clothes and toys and the unopened letters to Annie and Zach. I stuck those in the glove compartment of the Jeep. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be gone – I figured two weeks at the most. I had no plan other than to drive to Las Vegas and call Paige once I arrived. She couldn’t turn me away once I got there.
Lizzie had agreed to keep the chickens in her coop, and David and Gil had promised they’d watch Thing One and Thing Two. As I was slipping the boxes into the backseat, David came walking up the road, carrying a bunch of cornflowers from the photo shoot that never happened and a picnic basket – my favourite picnic basket – from the store, and he handed it all to me. ‘Look inside,’ he said. It was full of the things I loved: a jar of Marcella’s minestrone, her jam – made from blackberries the kids and Joe and I had picked last summer – one of her pesto and chicken salad sandwiches, and a lamb shank for Callie.
‘Does she know you’re giving me all this?’
‘She helped me pack it. I’m so sorry about the interview thing. I should have never thrown that on you. And I’m sorry about not standing by you. I’ve been an idiot . . . so bent on trying to help turn the store around, be the saviour, keep the kids here. It took Gil to point out that I’ve had the sensitivity of a rhinoceros.’
I pulled out a list and handed it to David. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s a helluva lot, I know.’
‘The thing is, El, I love it. I love the store. I love everything about it. You were right. I did want to be the one who took it over. I was jealous of Joe. Of how he got handed this thing on a silver platter, something he hadn’t really wanted, at least not since he was a little kid, while I was practically jumping up and down saying, “Pick me, pick me!” If it weren’t for you and your idea for Life’s a Picnic, I’d be a very bored person married to a very fat man.’
I laughed. ‘Gil was starting to look a little plump when you were shovelling all that food down him.’
‘For that reason, and many more, we are eternally grateful to you. And that’s why we’ve decided to give you this.’ He handed me an envelope. Inside was cash. A thick wedge of hundred-dollar bills.
‘David. I can’t take this. I’ll get a temp job when I get there.’
‘No. You need to focus on talking to Paige, not filling out job apps. This money was Gil’s idea, and it’s absolutely the right thing. We love you and we want to help. Do what you need to do to at least get her to talk to you. Take your time. I’ll take care of the store.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
Callie came running up then, carrying what looked like a small snaggled tree stump. But as she got closer I could see it wasn’t a tree, but some kind of animal skull. I took it from her and stared into the hollow eyes, the remaining yellowed teeth, the empty, dusty dryness of it.
‘Oh God,’ David said after a minute. ‘That could be Max.’
‘Max . . .?’
‘Joe’s dog when we were kids.’ David nodded, then shook his head. ‘Grandpa Sergio buried him in the redwood grove when I was about nine. You should have seen him in his glory days. A huge golden retriever. Max owned Elbow. He’d walk down the street from house to house. Everyone knew him. He was like the town mascot. I thought he’d live forever. Poor Max.’ David fell silent, his mind turning over memories.
‘What happened to him?’
‘Oh, that’s a sad story. Joe never told –’ He stopped himself.
‘Nope. Add it to the list, I guess.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll tell you. But not right now. You’ve got some miles to cover.’
The breeze kicked up and we both stood there, staring at the skull, taking in the warm sun, the stirring air that carried the scent of the bay trees and rosemary bushes, the Douglas fir from the ridge.
‘Come here.’ He wrapped me in one of his real hugs. ‘Things will be better again. Just hang in there. We’ll be here waiting. I’ll be here, you know, trying to figure out what else wasn’t said at dinner all those years. How much of the stifling in that room was about me being gay, and how much was really about Grandpa Sergio and Grandpa Dante . . . Internment camps. Shit. I feel another identity crisis coming on . . . You better go, before I climb in with you.’
On my way out of Elbow, I turned and headed up to the cemetery. I reached back and pulled up the bunch of cornflowers and let Callie scramble out, though I kept an eye on her. I certainly didn’t want her digging there. She circled around tombstones and started to squat by one, but I shooed her over to the trees. ‘Callie! Have you no respect?’ I laid the flowers along Joe’s tombstone, and I whispered, ‘Remember these? I had some just like them in my car when we met? Centaurea cyanus. I brought them into your kitchen and you filled a vase with water? Remember?’ I knelt there, sitting back on my heels, waiting to feel him. Wherever he was, he wasn’t hanging out there. ‘The truth is, I still can’t believe it,’ I said. ‘There’s a part of me that keeps thinking you’ll show up somewhere. Isn’t that weird?
‘There’s so much I didn’t know about you, honey. I’m sorry. I wish we could talk . . . I’m going to try to fix things. To fix the mess we made for Annie and Zach.’ I traced the letters on the stone. Joseph Anthony Capozzi Junior. The same letters he said were spelled in freckles on my arm. ‘I love you, honey. I was mad about some things. But I love you. And I’m going to bring them back.�
�� I took two of the cornflowers back to the Jeep with me and stuck them in the visor. Callie sniffed them. ‘Please Don’t Eat the Cornflowers,’ I said. And she didn’t touch them again, not the whole way to Las Vegas.
I drove and I drove, and I thought about those cornflowers. After I’d had my fifth miscarriage, my doctor had suggested walking. It didn’t help much. But I walked, anyway. Henry and I had agreed to divorce. I hadn’t known what to do next, where to go, who to be. And so I walked.
One day, as I passed the massive flower fields in Encinitas, I noticed a migrant worker who had stopped cutting. He was watching me. He ventured out to the edge, close to the sidewalk, ahead of me. When I approached, he said, ‘Wait, miss,’ and bent down, then stood back up, holding an armful of blue flowers. He pushed them towards me and smiled. ‘For you, you take.’ I stopped, my mouth gaping. ‘No, I . . .’
‘Por favor. Every day, you’re sad. Triste. Beautiful flowers, sí? Esperanza. How you say in English? Hope? They mean this hope.’
I took the flowers. They filled my arms like a child. I couldn’t help but smile. The next day all the migrant workers, including my friend, were gone. North, I imagined. And suddenly, I wanted to be with them, losing myself in fields of flowers by day, chatting around a camp-fire by night, always moving. A hard life, but one with camaraderie. That’s when I started packing my Jeep. I wasn’t really going to track down the sweet migrant worker, the only person who had instinctively known how to ease my sorrow. But I’d taken it as a sign, the way desperate people do, to do something. To head north, to find my true north. Maybe a job tracking juvenile salmon in Alaska. And that crazy impulse had led me to Elbow, to Joe, to Annie and Zach. Just as I’d hoped my crazy impulse to go to Las Vegas would somehow lead me to Annie and Zach once again.
Chapter Thirty-two
I drove through dark desert and lonely straight roads, my eyes often drawn towards the brilliantly lit night sky; falling stars streaked across it, like the thoughts of Joe and the kids and the Capozzis and Paige that kept streaking across my mind.
David called me on my cell. ‘Where are you?’
‘Somewhere between a prickly pear cactus and a Joshua tree. With way too much time before the next cactus. So keep me awake. Tell me about Max.’
I could hear pans banging in the sink. ‘I’d forgotten that whole thing until today. Joe loved that dog. Poor Joe . . . He and Max were walking on Jasper Williams’ property. Jasper was the town asshole extraordinaire.’
‘Do I know this guy?’
‘Oh, he died years ago. Everyone avoided him. He was some retired military dude. But Joe was maybe eleven, had just got his first camera, and Jasper had the best view of the river. He yelled at Joe for trespassing. Everyone trespassed in Elbow. It was synonymous with being neighbourly. Apparently, Williams had lost some chickens and he blamed Max, which was ridiculous because Max wouldn’t hurt a flea. He yelled, “I told you all to stay away, you goddamn trespassing Wop. Should have locked you Kraut-lovin’ Japs and Wops up forever!” and then he shot Max dead. What a fucking idiot. Joe wanted to call the police, but Grandpa Sergio and Dad said no.’ David let out a long whistle and fell silent.
‘David?’
‘Oh my God. Now I get it. They said he was trespassing and they didn’t want trouble and they didn’t want to hurt the family name.’
‘The only family name it would have hurt was Jasper whatever-his-face’s.’
‘Absolutely. Joe cried for a week solid I remember, even at Little League practice. At dinner one night my dad told him to quit being a sissy. Joe got up from the table and left, and I waited for all hell to break loose. But my dad sat chewing his food, looking across the table at Grandpa Sergio. My mother sat looking at her hands. And no one ever said another word about it.’
I could see them sitting around a table piled with comfort food, a vacant chair taking up the whole room, as all the unspoken secrets and anger and fears and humiliation passed back and forth between them. Mangia, mangia! Have another helping of silence.
As we approached Las Vegas, Callie woke and barked at all the lights upon lights upon lights – even though they were still far ahead. Soon they were like firework displays exploding too close; their heat on my face, flashing, running, strobing.
But those lights lost their bravado the next morning, when I got a clearer look at the Strip and realized they were mere compensation, meant to blind me to the fact there wasn’t an ounce of natural beauty, or natural anything, anywhere. The only snippet of green lay in a row of planted palm trees in the centre of the strip. At a stoplight, I caught an older man and a much younger woman snorting cocaine in a black convertible. She took the rolled bill and mirror from him and went at it while he held back her long black hair. Is this what Annie and Zach saw on their way to school? How could Paige have moved herself, let alone the kids, from Elbow – with its lush, tree-crammed hills running all the way into the river, to this? I could not even begin to picture Annie and Zach being there, let alone calling it home.
But, I reminded myself, Elbow wasn’t Utopia for everyone. The rainy winters had gotten to Paige and deepened her depression, she’d written. She wanted to be warm and dry. But the biggest reason, I knew from reading the other letters, was that she had nowhere else to go but to Aunt Bernie, who lived in a trailer on the outskirts, and who loved her. Loved all of her, Paige had written. I thought of this as I pulled onto the freeway, not really sure where to go or if I should call her. A billboard stood out against the legions of other billboards. Was it? It couldn’t be. I leaned forward over the steering wheel and peered. Yes, by God, it was. There stood Paige, ten feet tall, in a power suit, with her arms folded, her tight white smile now the size of a turkey platter. when it’s time to stage, call paige. The same goofy slogan that was on her business card, the same phone number I’d been calling all week. Well, Aunt Bernie certainly had a lot to love. ‘My, my, my,’ I said to Callie, who rested her paws on the console between us and twitched her forehead nine different ways at me. It seemed that whenever I’d figured out something about Paige, or began to feel compassion for her, she’d show yet another side. Who was this woman who’d plastered herself on a billboard? Maybe pigeons would perch on it, leaving streaks of Columba livia shit all over her.
Still, how much more obvious of a sign did I need? I punched the number into my cell phone. As always, Paige didn’t answer, so I left a message telling her I was in town. This time she called me right back.
‘You’re in Las Vegas?’ she asked.
‘Yep.’ I was trying for casual, cheerful, even. ‘Nice billboard.’
‘Oh, that – I got a good deal on it. I actually get quite a lot of calls from it.’
I stifled an I bet.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Well, not to gamble. I want to see the kids.’
‘Ella. You’re not thinking about Annie and Zach.They’re trying to make a huge adjustment. The judge knew what he was doing when he put the first visitation a month away. You don’t live here. Why mislead them now?’
‘Must I remind you that the judge was about to make a quite dif –’
‘No. You don’t need to remind me. Look, Ella. I’m only asking for time. And I think you need time too. To rebuild your life without Annie and Zach.’
‘But don’t you see? You’re cutting me out? Doing the same thing you say Joe did to you?’
‘My number one concern is for the kids.’
‘Then why did you take them away from me? We were happy . . .’ My voice broke, but I held it together. The last thing I needed to do was blubber at Paige. Besides, I was driving and a semi was on my tail.
‘Go home, Ella. Wait a month. Then call us.’
‘Who says I’m not home?’ I blurted out.
She sighed. ‘You mean you were lying about being here?’
‘No, I mean maybe I moved here.’ Did I really just say that? Silence.
‘Paige? Can you hear me?’
‘Yes.’
/>
‘So now will you let me see the kids?’
‘You can see them in twenty-two days, as ordered by the court. Good-bye, Ella.’ She hung up before I could respond.
That went well. I pulled off the freeway and found an ampm store and picked up the Las Vegas Sun. I grabbed a pint of ice cream too, knowing I didn’t have a freezer back at the No-Tell Motel, knowing I’d have to eat it all in one sitting. My version of living life on the edge in Las Vegas.
Along one of the aisles, a yellow notebook caught my eye. It was bigger than the one I’d carried around before my dad died, but it looked similar, spiralled across the top like mine had been. Flipping through its blank pages, I thought about that little red-haired girl with her binoculars who’d been so curious, so full of whys? And whos? And whats? She’d finally woken up a few weeks ago after decades of sleep, had already been busy shaking things up, wreaking havoc, yes, but hell, I loved the kid. She was a good kid. She’d already taught me a thing or two. And she needed a notebook.
Even though I despised Las Vegas, I’d told Paige I’d moved. I’d left out the word temporarily. I couldn’t stand the thought of Annie and Zach being raised in a town known for gambling, drugs, and prostitution, but more than that, I couldn’t stand the thought of them being raised there without me. Nor could I stand the thought of returning to Elbow without them. And judging from our first phone conversation, things with Paige were not going to happen quickly. I had three options, and I hated all of them. A place was just a place. I could deal with missing Elbow. Temporarily. I opened the paper up to the classifieds and started looking for an apartment. I wrote addresses down in my notebook. I had time to kill, and I wanted to make Annie and Zach feel at home when they visited me, not sitting perched on a bed in a tacky motel room.
The Underside of Joy Page 23