The Underside of Joy

try to talk to me about money. I just had no idea how much he wasn’t saying.’
    He shrugged. ‘Everyone’s different, I guess. Lizzie would have been on my ass about it every day.’ That didn’t help. I must have flinched, because then he said, ‘But that’s just Lizzie. Financially, you’ll be fine. My dad’s guy Hank fixed Joe up with a sweet life insurance policy. You need to go home and get some sleep.’
    I nodded, pressed my lips together. I didn’t tell him that sweet policy never quite happened. ‘Frank? Thank you. I’m sorry I woke you up and then dumped this all on you.’
    ‘No worries. Come on, I’ll walk out with you.’
    ‘You go ahead. I’m going to put stuff away upstairs, and then I’ll head home.’
    ‘Promise?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    But I went back upstairs and looked through every file again and again. Everything was exactly where it should be; it was just that there were numerous payables files. I drove back home in early morning light and finally felt like I could sleep. I would figure out something.
    When I walked into the kitchen, Annie sat on the kitchen counter talking on the phone, clicking her feet together, pink fuzzy socks ricocheting off each other. She giggled. Callie sat alert at my feet, thumping her tail on the floor, hoping doggy treats were in the grocery bags I carried, but they held only the store’s books. Joe had always remembered Callie’s treats.
    Annie said into the phone, ‘Okay. I love you too. Bye.’
    She hung up. I picked her up off the counter and held her. Her soft tangles of hair tickled my neck. She smelled like the peach girly powder she’d talked me into buying her at Target. My angel of mercy in SpongeBob SquarePants jammies. ‘Morning, Glory.’
    ‘Morning, Mommy.’
    ‘Was that Nonna?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Lucy?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘Is this a guessing game?’
    She shook her head again.
    ‘Then spill it, buster. Uncle David?’
    ‘No, silly.’ She reached up and ruffled the hair on the top of my head, like she was the grown-up. ‘It was Mama.’

Chapter Seven
    Annie quit ruffling my hair and said, ‘What’s wrong, Mommy?’
    I shook my head and forced the smile that had been refusing to show up and do its job. ‘Nothing.’
    ‘You don’t like Mama, do you?’
    ‘Well . . .’ I chose my words, plucking a few out of my internal tirade so that Damn right, I can’t stand the sight of her, I don’t want her to call you or touch you or know you got edited down until I strung together ‘I don’t . . . know her.’ But how could I, when she never visited or even called once in three years? Nice mother. Seems like she couldn’t care less came out ‘But . . . she . . . seems . . . nice.’ The effect was less than genuine.
    But Annie, sweetly, genuinely, held up an honestly hopeful conversation on her end. ‘She is very nice. She likes you. I think you could be friends like you and Lucy.’ She held both hands out and shrugged, as if to say, Where’s the hard part here?
    ‘Oh, you do, do you!’ I tickled her until she squealed, then set her down. ‘How about some breakfast?’
    ‘Zachosaurus!’ Annie said, all big sisterly, and ran, then skidded over to Zach, who had just appeared in the kitchen in his fleece-footed jammies, dragging his Bubby and brontosaurus, his hair sticking out like a confused compass. I picked him up and breathed him in. Zachosaurus. No one ever called him that but Joe and Annie and me. I wondered if Paige would now too.
    While the kids gathered eggs and my mom slept, I sat on the back porch drinking more coffee, my mind pinging from the kids to Paige to Joe to the store to our bank account. I looked to the trees. They always calmed me. The redwood grove stood like our own appointed guards; their trunks rose straight and solid from the land, their branches so large, we had seen wild turkeys perched in them. The birds huddled, as big as Labradors, barely able to scrabble up from one branch to the other, letting out shrill laughter that kept startling us, as if a bunch of old British ladies were up there, gossiping. We watched them for hours one winter afternoon, a giant’s version of a partridge in a pear tree.
    Our oaks were more like wise, arthritic grandparents. If you pulled up a chair and sat awhile and listened, you usually learned something useful. The fruit trees were like our cherished aunties, wearing frilly dresses and an overabundance of perfume in the spring, then by summer,