The Underside of Joy

modern, with lots of windows and skylights to let in the few shafts of filtered light.
    Vines of ivy climbed and hung from the trees, almost like seaweed. It was dark and so quiet.
    Like being underwater.
    It had been almost three months. Three months! How was it possible? That I would never see him again, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand in the garden, grinning – or pointing his camera, his body curved like a comma as if to say Pause here and see this moment ? Or juggling oranges at the market? Did we have oranges at the new store? Did I forget the oranges? Joe would have remembered the oranges.
    There was the way he’d pick up Annie and Zach in one fell swoop, one in each arm, their laughter, their delighted Daddy Daddy Daddy s. The way he’d swing them around the room and trot them on his knees, saying Grandpa Sergio’s old ditty: Giddy-up, pony, We’re on our way to Leonis, To pick up some macaroni, So don’t give me any baloney, Just giddy-up, pony . . . giddy-up! and right at that point, launch them into the air.
    Was he somewhere, watching? Did he know about the store? Did he approve? Was he happy, relieved, pissed off ? Had I freed him to go on to be reincarnated or reach nirvana or become an angel or whatever it was he was supposed to go do?
    There in those woods, I understood why enchanted so often preceded forest. There is a sense of the mystical, of the otherworldly, when you’re surrounded by ancient living grandeur. When one beam of particled light looks celestial and another looks like it might be the product of a sorcerer’s experiment. The air smelled of bay leaves, of loam, of wood fires and pine needles and mist – even though it was a warm, sunny day out there . . . and way, way up there. I remembered reading that in the redwood canopy, scientists had discovered copepods – crustaceans that were part of the diet of grazing baleen whales. No one knew exactly how they got there, but anyone could imagine. The sparrows that flew by could have been a school of minnows. It was that kind of dreamy place; I could be walking on a sea-floor; Joe could come swimming by.
    How long had it been since I’d passed a house? Where was I? I was fantasizing about my dead husband swimming through the forest, and I had a store full of food and relatives depending on my return, not to mention my sound mental health. I didn’t want to be the woman who got lost on her way back from picking up a map. But what was all this about, really? I’d spent months remodelling the store, a new beginning that was also trying to save some part of Joe. It had felt good to have a project, to be so busy, so distracted. To act the part of a redwood, towering above, reaching for the sun.
    But some part of me wanted to hide here under the fern fronds. To sleep with the slugs.
    A twig snapped and my head jerked up. Above the road, a black-tailed doe stared me down with her huge ink-puddle eyes. Another snap, and I saw her two fawns below me, their spots fading in the early autumn, their legs still as fragile as wineglass stems. I stayed very still while the mama deer held my gaze. I know how you feel, I wanted to tell her. We are one, you and I. But I realized she saw me as the intruder, the one in between her and her babes. I didn’t move. She must have finally signalled to them, because the fawns pranced across the road, right in front of me, so close I could have reached out to touch them, before the three of them bounded up the hill, disappearing into the forest.
    I ran the rest of the way back to the store. Back to Annie and Zach.

Chapter Fourteen
    The next morning, I lay in bed thinking about Clem’s story, when I felt Zach climb under the covers and let out one of his long, meandering exhales until I opened my eyes. He rubbed his cheek with Bubby’s ear and stared at the ceiling.
    ‘I miss Batman. And Robin. I want them to come to the big, big party but they CAN’T. And Daddy CAN’T. And I’m all ALONE. ’
    ‘I’ll be there, and Annie will be there.’
    ‘I mean boys.’
    ‘Uncle David? All your buddies?’
    He sighed again. It seemed cruel that his favourite toys lay unnecessarily buried behind the coop when he needed them more than ever.
    ‘Well?’ I was winging it as I went. ‘Daddy died for real, so he can’t come. But Batman and Robin are pretend, so maybe, just maybe, they didn’t really drown.’
    He jumped up, eyes wide. ‘Really?’ I nodded. He said, ‘But we sawed them. They