The Underside of Joy

along with my insurance card.
    Four hours and five test results later, Dr Irving Boyle explained the fine intricacies of an anxiety attack, why I was the perfect candidate. He had a straggly grey beard that made him look more like a professor of philosophy than a doctor of medicine. He said, ‘Your heart is fine.’ He sat down on his stool and stuck his pen behind his ear and placed both hands on his knees. ‘Except for the fact that it’s broken. Sadness and depression can result in anxiety. Anxiety can result in the kind of attack you experienced today. Your husband’s recent death is taking its toll on you, both physically and emotionally. I’m very sorry for your loss. I want to suggest you try an anxiety inhibitor and possibly an antidepressant to get you over this bump.’
    This bump ? But I knew by the gentle sympathy in his eyes that he wasn’t minimizing anything. ‘So what you’re saying is, the good news is I’m not going to die of a heart attack, and the bad news is I’m not going to die of a heart attack?’ The look on his face made me add, ‘Kidding.’
    ‘We take suicidal references seriously around here. And especially in folks who’ve suffered losses like you have. I can understand why you might be feeling that way, but you have your children to think about. You have a lot of life – and wonderful times – ahead of you.’ I nodded. ‘I know that. I do. There’s no way I’m bailing on my kids.’ I didn’t tell him that someone was trying to take them away from me. That the grief was only part of what I was feeling. That I was also terrified of losing Annie and Zach. He asked me if I was tired and I asked him if it was possible to die from sleep deprivation.
    He prescribed Xanax to help me sleep and help with the anxiety. I told him I wanted to wait on the antidepressant, that it seemed natural to let any grief I was feeling run its course. I wasn’t depressed, I told him. Just tired and sad.
    Lucy drove me home. Marcella had fed the kids and put their pyjamas on them, and the house smelled of eggplant Parmesan – Joe’s favourite – and SpongeBob bubble bath. ‘I’m sorry,’ I told her, but she waved her hand.
    ‘No worries. We had fun. How you doing? You doing okay?’
    I squeezed her hand and nodded, but I felt so Not Okay. I’d spent most of the day in the hospital only to discover that I was a nervous wreck. A head case. Not completely unlike Paige.
    Annie came running out of their room. ‘Mommy! Mommy!’ she sang. I hadn’t seen her that happy since before Joe’s death. I scooped her up in my arms. Her delight in seeing me worked like a salve for my soul. ‘Can I tell her now? Can I?’ she said to Marcella. Marcella shrugged, turned, untying her apron. ‘Mommy? Guess what!’
    ‘You cleaned your room?’
    ‘No, silly.’ She ruffled my hair again. She’d been doing that a lot lately. I wasn’t quite ready for parent-child role reversal. ‘Mama invited us to Lost Vegas! She wants Zachosaurus and me to visit her next weekend!’

Chapter Sixteen
    The next morning, at the store before it opened, while I made risotto cakes and brought the puttanesca sauce to a boil, I called Gwen Alterman and asked her what I should do about Paige’s request. ‘And I can’t stand that she’s manipulating Annie. That’s got to stop.’
    Gwen agreed. ‘Making the request through the kids is fighting below the belt. I’ll send her counsel a letter today to put an end to it. Now. You could say no about the visitation . . . and then they’d probably file a motion to compel. We’d need a psychological evaluation to show that she’s not wacko, or that she won’t steal the children. But you also don’t want to look like you’re antagonistic to a relationship between the children and their birth mother.’ She paused, and I pictured her taking a multiple-choice test, weighing the answers, while I turned the burner down to let the sauce simmer. ‘You don’t want to come across as a jealous, overbearing type. You’re loving. You’re open to some visitation. But it’s best for the kids to live with you. Period.’
    I listened. I remembered to breathe. I held the phone with my shoulder, set down the copper mould for the risotto cakes, poured a glass of water, and opened the bottle of Xanax from my purse under the counter. Joe used to tease me about my reluctance to take medicine, even an aspirin. But after my afternoon in the emergency room, the Xanax felt