The Underside of Joy

by Seré Prince Halverson

‘Maybe three minutes, maybe even less.’

  ‘And you started CPR right away?’

  We both nodded. Paige’s robe now lay like a blanket over Zach’s trike in the bottom of the pool.

  ‘Okay. That’s good. That’s a good thing. They’re going to try to get him breathing on his own while we get him to the hospital. Luckily, we’re minutes away from Children’s.’

  ‘Is he going to be okay?’ Paige asked the question I was afraid to. He looked at Annie. He said, ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’

  Only one of us could ride in the ambulance, and Paige said, ‘You, you go. I’ll get dressed and take Annie.’ I nodded, hugging Annie, and sat in the front. They wouldn’t let me ride in the back with Zach. They were still working on him.

  The hospital was only five or six blocks away, and they made me stay in a waiting room while they sped him down the hallway. I sat, staring at a television, not seeing anything but Zach’s blue, bloated face. How long? They’d asked us. Minutes, we’d both said. Only minutes. I prayed the only prayer I could remember, which was Please. I prayed it over and over and over. Please. Please, God. Please let him be okay. Please don’t take him. Please, please, God. Please.

  I felt a hand on my head and I looked up to see Annie. I held her while she wailed, ‘I wasn’t watching him!’

  I held her face in my hands. ‘Annie. This is not your fault. Do you understand me?’ Paige stood by the door in jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair dripping, her eyes frantic. In her right hand she loosely held a clipboard with registration papers; in her other hand she clutched Bubby, still wet from the puddle. I said, ‘They took him. I don’t know anything.’

  She slumped down in a chair and said, ‘I thought . . . I locked . . . the gate.’

  I said, ‘I know, I know. I shouldn’t have come over. I shouldn’t have bought him those stupid water wings. God. Or that stupid trike. He kept telling me he wanted to ride it in the water, to go see Joe . . .’ A doctor appeared. She was young, with short dark hair and stylish black glasses. She said, ‘Who’s the mother?’ We both stood up and mumbled words that came out, ‘I am, we are.’

  She shook our hands, said, ‘I’m Dr Markowitz.’ She looked at Paige, then at me. She said, ‘It’s going to be a long night for you and for Zach. But he has a lot going for him. Early CPR, early EMS support. We call this first hour the Golden Hour, and his has been good. They got him in here fast. But his breathing rate is very low, even for a child’s. The ventilator will help. We’re checking blood gases, pupil response. We’ll be doing a CT scan to check his brain activity . . .’

  ‘He is going to make it . . . He is going to be okay?’ Only Paige’s last word rose in a question.

  ‘The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will tell us a lot. We’ll finish up our tests, and then you can see him.’

  Bernie came. She took Annie away from the hospital for a while, to get something to eat, and even offered to go to the apartment and take Callie for a walk. I thanked her and handed her the key. Annie went along willingly, burying her head in Aunt Bernie’s side as they slowly walked down the corridor.

  When they let us in Zach’s room, we stopped before going up to him, trying to get our minds around the fact that the blue-tinged swollen little boy was really Zach; the fury of arms and legs of the paramedics working to keep him alive had been replaced by blue tubes that ran every which way from his nose and throat and arm and chest, and instead of the paramedics’ knowledgeable chants of numbers and letters, Zach’s vital signs now blipped and beeped on connected digital screens. Paige took hold of one of his hands and I took hold of the other. It occurred to me then, as we each gripped one of his hands, that we had both loved and lost the same man. We had both loved and lost the same children. We had both lost our footing, lost our way, lost ourselves. We had both touched down at the bottom, only to discover that the bottom was sinking sand. Hours before, we were heavy weights tied to Zach, dragging him under. He needed us to be his buoys.

  I saw every action I had taken, every choice I had made, lined up like squares on a board game, as if I had led us all to this moment, this tragedy, as if I alone had rolled the dice that would move us to this day, with my decision to stop in Elbow for a sandwich. I could have kept going, could have ended up in Oregon, or Seattle, maybe in a cabin on one of the San Juan Islands, alone on a driftwood-strewn beach, making my life’s work the study of tide pools, or working in a fish hatchery in Alaska, far, far away from these people whose lives were now destroyed. Everything would have been set in a different motion: Joe would have welcomed Paige back with open arms, they would have stayed a family, she would have known about the store and helped him turn it around long ago, and he wouldn’t have gone out to Bodega Head to take pictures that morning because they would have been on a family vacation to Disneyland or a second home in Tahoe. I would not have made my feeble, stupid attempt to try to make Zach feel better about Batman and Robin, confusing him about the permanence of drowning. Zach would not have ridden his red trike into a pool in Las Vegas; he would still be playing with his action figures under the butterfly bush. I promised God I would do everything and anything, even leave Zach and Annie in Paige’s care for good, if it only meant that Zach could live.

  Paige and I said little, just held on and willed Zach’s eyes to flutter open, to say Mama or Mommy, it didn’t matter which. It didn’t matter at all. Sometimes I would look up and she would look up, our gaze full of regret and fear and sadness and pain and good intentions and hope and mother love – all the things we shared, that had been there all along, that we hadn’t been able to see because we had seen each other only as a threat.

  I called David from my cell phone in the waiting room, and he showed up late that afternoon, with Marcella and Joe Sr. My mom was on her way down from Seattle. There was no room in the small dedicated space for feuds or awkwardness, and we took turns embracing, not merely as if our lives depended on it, but because Zach’s truly did. Marcella held me, her tears raining on my neck while Joe Sr hugged Paige, and then I was hugging David, Joe Sr. We stood in a circle around Zach, and I once again thought of the redwoods, how they formed their family circles, how they reached for the sun together and cast their long shadows together. A nurse named Lester came in and looked at Zach, looked at the blips on the screens, wrote something down on the chart, and when Joe Sr asked him what the prognosis was he said, ‘We really don’t know. We’ll see how he is in the morning.’ He kept nodding his head, even after he spoke, looking at each of us. ‘Only family members are allowed in the ICU. You all family?’ We nodded. ‘Lucky kid.’ Then he said, ‘If you haven’t eaten yet, now’s a good time. He’s stabilized.’ Eating was the last thing I felt like doing, but Marcella and Joe Sr and David went to get coffees.

  They opened the door to the rushing and crashing of carts and gurneys and doctors and nurses, of pages over the intercom and bright lights and the smell of distant Jell-O and macaroni and cheese. The door closed and the room fell quiet again, except for the hum and blip of the machines.

  ‘Paige.’ I looked across Zach. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. She didn’t speak. I closed my eyes and continued my silent pleading with God to save Zach. Finally she said, ‘I went about this the wrong way. It was wrong of me. I should have never done this right now, not right when Joe died. I had started talking to the lawyer before, and he said it was time to move, but I knew better. I’d already waited so long – for lots of reasons.’

  She pulled a tissue out of her purse with her free hand, still holding Zach’s. We stood in more silence before she went on. ‘Joe didn’t respond, but let’s face it, I’d also needed that time. But then, when I was finally really truly ready, I got the call from Lizzie that Joe had drowned. I wanted Annie and Zach above all else – even above what was best for them. They always say kids are the ones hurt in custody battles. And now Zach is paying the biggest price.’

  ‘And Annie . . .’

  ‘Yes. Bu
t you’ve got what you need now. Zach’s hurt, and you have proof I’m a bad mother.’

  ‘Paige. Both of us were there. Both of us played a part in this.’ She tilted her head, raised her eyebrow, as if to size me up, to see if I meant it. An orderly opened the door, letting in the echoes from the hallway, then let it shut without coming in. I thought about keeping quiet, keeping her secret under cover. But I was done with secrets.

  I forced myself to say, ‘When you were giving him CPR? I saw your back. I saw the scars.’ More silence. ‘Your mother . . . she was psychotic?’

  Paige let out a long sigh. ‘Only after she had me. I was her first and only.’ She fell quiet while we listened to the machines; then she said, ‘My mother had a horrible labour that lasted days, and then they ended up doing a C-section. This is all from Aunt Bernie. She pieced it together for me. I was colic.’ She looked at her hands. ‘My father was a salesman and gone a lot, according to Bernie. When I was about three months old, my father . . . he told this all to Aunt Bernie. That he’d asked my mother to iron his shirts. He said she had been acting strange and he thought it would help her to have something to do. Besides, he explained, he really did need his shirts ironed.’ She stopped and looked at me. ‘Do you really want to hear this? It isn’t pretty.’

  I told her yes, I did. I wanted to know.

  She continued, ‘When he came home that night, every single one of his shirts was ironed and hanging in the closet.’ She stopped, looked up at me again, looked at Zach.

  ‘It’s okay, Paige.’

  Her voice quivered in a whisper. I leaned in to hear. ‘My mother was also hanging in the closet. I was lying on my stomach in my bassinet, next to the ironing board, not able to scream or move. The iron was on the floor, still hot.’ Her eyes locked on mine for a moment before redirecting them back to studying her hands, which now lay flat on Zach. ‘The police report said, “The iron was covered in a black substance that was later found to be the victim’s skin.” The man who was my father took me to the hospital in the bassinet, afraid that if he touched me or held me, the pain would kill me. Then he left. He called Aunt Bernie. He told her everything. He cried. He said he was sorry. We never heard from him again.’

  Tears were running again, down both our faces, snot running from our noses, and we each let out a little laugh – embarrassed, a bit shy – as Paige reached into her purse for more Kleenex and handed me several. ‘So you see. Joe did have a lot to be scared of.’

  ‘And you were scared.’

  She nodded, and when she spoke, her voice squeaked, high and tight. ‘It wasn’t the same as my mother, but I was afraid it was . . . when I got sick. And then when he didn’t respond to my letters? I didn’t know how much he told the kids. I thought that maybe it was easier just to tell them I was dead. So I was afraid that I would scare them also.’

  I nodded. ‘But still . . .’

  ‘Still, both he and I could have done better. ‘

  ‘And me. I could have done better.’ I reached into my bag and felt for the letters, then pressed them into her hand.

  She saw what they were, then held them up to cover her face. And then we leaned over the bed, over Zach, and hugged, not tentatively or suspiciously, as we had that first night after the funeral, but leaning into each other, holding each other up, heaving out sobs, clinging to each other and Zach like we were clinging to a rock.

  We finally pulled away to blow our noses. We each took long, stammering breaths. As I slipped my hand around his swollen fingers, I remembered him back on that morning when he and Annie and I were playing Ship, how he jumped onto the bed and pulled the sheet up, how he laughed so loudly, not knowing yet that his daddy had died. Now I imagined he was sitting on Joe’s lap somewhere in a parallel universe, and I silently asked Joe to please tell Zach it was time to come back to us, that I needed him, and that Paige needed him too.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  In the earliest hours of the morning, we watched in wonder as Zach’s heart rate and oxygen levels rose steadily, his skin turned pink with the dawn, his eyes opened. He flung his arms, trying to remove the ventilator tube, but Paige and I reassured him while the doctors removed the tube from his throat. He smiled. He spoke; he complained that his throat hurt. He said, ‘Mommy.’ He said, ‘Mama.’

  Dr Markowitz said, ‘I want to keep him here for another day or two, keep monitoring him. He seems like he’s made a full recovery. But there are some things we won’t know for years, as far as a diagnosis of brain damage. There may not be any. He’s a tough little guy, and he’s already shown great resilience. In the meantime’ – she smiled, stuck her hands in her lab coat – ‘celebrate.’

  My mom, Gil, Lucy, Lizzie and Frank, Aunt Bernie – everyone came to welcome back Zach, an ongoing parade of balloons and teddy bears and dinosaurs and action figures in tow. Clem Silver sent a beautiful illustration of our cottage, with our garden billowing over the foreground and the redwood grove stoic in the background. Zach pointed to it and said, ‘Let’s go home.’

  The room fell quiet. Paige and I shared a look. I said, ‘Let’s concentrate on getting better.’

  Joe Sr, Marcella, Bernie, Paige, and I ended up going together to the cafeteria. I took a bite of a tuna fish sandwich, thinking about how strange this all was, sitting with ‘our’ in-laws, actually chatting, actually laughing. Bernie excused herself, said she needed to get back to her office, offered to walk Callie later. She was so polished and efficient; you’d never guess that back at home she lived among piles of silly things she couldn’t part with.

  Paige looked at me, then took a deep breath. ‘So when I said I suppose you have everything you need now that this happened . . . to Zach. To persuade a judge to change the court order in your favour . . .’ I kept my eyes steady on hers. ‘I told you and I meant it. We are both responsible in our own ways. But Paige, Annie and Zach, they said they want both of us.’

  Her eyes filled. ‘They really said that? They told you that?’

  I nodded.

  She covered her eyes with her hand. ‘You didn’t have to tell me.’ And then, ‘Thank you for telling me.’

  I leaned over and said, ‘Paige? Would you ever consider coming back to Elbow?’

  Marcella shook out her white embroidered handkerchief and blew her nose.

  We waited. I took another bite of sandwich and chewed long after I could have swallowed it, afraid to move my hands again or change expression or do anything that might negatively affect the outcome of that moment threaded between the four of us, connecting us, tugging at our souls. All the hurtful things that had passed between us all hung there too, hooks we’d need to untie, one by one, with time.

  Paige didn’t answer, just kept her hand locked over her eyes while her shoulders shuddered. Joe Sr reached out and put his hand on Paige’s other hand. I covered his with mine, and then Marcella extended her own hand, and we sat there, quiet, while the lunch crowd cleared, until all that was left was the circle of us.

  The next afternoon, Dr Markowitz told us, ‘Go home. And don’t come back.’ She went over things to look for, but she said she had high hopes that Zach was going to be fine. ‘I’ve never seen a kid put away that much macaroni and cheese.’

  When we left the hospital that day, Annie, Paige, and I packed up Zach’s things. David and Gil took armfuls of toys down to their car. A mural of Noah’s Ark adorned the wall leading to the lobby. Annie said, as she walked along, patting the picture, ‘Two giraffes, two monkeys, two lions.’ And then she stopped, letting us walk ahead of her, me pushing Zach in the regulation wheelchair, Paige carrying his balloons and suitcase. Annie gave us each a pat on our butts. When we turned, she grinned at us. She said, ‘Two moms.’

  Epilogue

  The magazine did end up running a four-page story, and while there was a line about lemons and lemonade, the article focused on the internment of Grandpa Sergio and Marcella’s father, Grandpa Dante, and wove in the family history and perseverance with the store’s tra
nsformations. Other magazine features have followed over the past five years. Time even did a short article. The story of the Italian internment during World War II caught the public’s attention, and many descendants of the interned – Italian, but also Japanese and German – have found their way to Elbow, and to the store, to enter the name of their relative in the book we keep open, to see the display Marcella and Joe Sr helped us arrange on the back wall – of Sergio’s and others’ Enemy Alien IDs and photos, the popular posters of the time with specific directions not to speak the enemy language, along with other memorabilia people have contributed.

  There are also the hordes of foodies and wine connoisseurs that flock here because of the other, purely decadent write-ups in Bon Appétit, Travel + Leisure, Gourmet. David is making quite a name for himself as a chef, and I am making a name for myself as the person who does all the other stuff. Which is just fine with me.

  As a way of singing the praises of the natural beauty of the area without having to actually sing, I work as a guide for Fish and Wild-life a few times a month. The other day, as I led a hike along the river, someone complained about the squawking crows. I gave my spiel about how smart they are, how adaptable. I told the story about how they drop nuts at a busy intersection in China, then wait for the cars to run over and crack them, then stand patiently on the corner, until the light changes, so they can eat the cracked nuts without getting crushed by traffic. Usually, that gets people smiling. But this one woman was an exceptionally tough nut to crack, so to speak. ‘I still don’t like them,’ she huffed. ‘They remind me of death.’

  ‘The Corvus brachyrhynchos are so smart and adaptable,’ I went on, ‘that they partake in cooperative breeding. In other words, they share in mothering, in all aspects of raising each other’s babies. They didn’t need anyone to tell them that it takes a village.’

  Paige and I have found our own way to share in raising Annie and Zach, and though it’s not perfect, it is what you might call cooperative. She lives in the next town, and we brag to each other about everything from Zach’s soccer game to his reading abilities and his latest math-test grade. We know that other people don’t want to hear it. We know not to bombard the kid with our relief that he is okay. (He is eight now, and starting to roll his eyes sometimes when I cover his forehead with kisses. But only sometimes.) Depending on whose turn it is to have them spend the night, one of us will call the other, unable to wait another day to report, ‘Well, the guy aced his project. He seems to know his stuff.’ It is our way of saying, Yes, we have made mistakes, mistakes that have hurt our children, but there is grace in this life of ours. Sometimes we still disagree. Sometimes we have misunderstandings. We are still finding our way. But I am bound to you by Annie and Zach; there is no one else on this planet who cares about them as much as you and I do.