The Underside of Joy

I’ve loved him since I was, like, six. Call me later.’
    I hung up. Joe was gone, but I did still have some of my favourite things. Digging in the garden with my kids, collecting eggs with the kids, walking into town with the kids on their bikes, Play-Doh and finger paints and beads, ironing crayon shavings between sheets of wax paper – all the messy things that I loved to do with them. Many other things besides watching The Sound of Music . . . again, as Annie and even Lucy had pointed out.
    Dr Irving Boyle was right. Because of Annie and Zach, I had a lot to live for. I was not only their mother; I was a good mother, a superior mother. We just needed to keep doing our favourite things. A weekend with Paige wasn’t going to threaten what we’d taken three years to establish. Gwen Alterman was right too: It would only help our cause. Imagine Paige with her perfectly manicured nails covered in barfy finger paints. Ha!
    Annie and Zach and I sat on the couch in the not-so-great room. Callie went from one to the other of us, pushing her head and her backside into us, thwacking us with her tail, panting. The pink suitcase was packed to the gills, along with Zach’s Thomas the Tank Engine suitcase; they waited by the door. At 10:15 a.m. – precisely when she said she’d arrive – Paige’s rental car turned up our drive. Callie galloped down the hallway with Annie, while Zach, holding his Bubby, stood and watched me. I wiped my palms on my jeans and tried to smooth my hair down.
    Zach jumped into my lap. ‘Bella,’ he said, planting a kiss on my cheek, ‘you look gorgeous. ’
    I laughed and planted my own kisses all over his face. I knew he’d taken that line from Joe. My insecurity must have been bouncing off the walls for a three-year-old boy to be prompted to flatter me. He wriggled free, and I stood up, remembered to breathe a few abdominal breaths, then walked into the kitchen and picked up a dish towel so it looked like I was busy doing something. I’d been cleaning all morning, but the house still looked cluttered. She probably wouldn’t even come in.
    But she was already walking down the hallway and into the kitchen.
    ‘Annie let me in.’ She looked across to the great room. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you, I like how you tore down that wall. It looks much better. I knew it would. Do you mind if I use the bathroom?’
    I had started to clean the bathroom but got distracted and then forgot about it entirely. I considered telling her no, she could use the bathroom at Ernie’s Gas, but knew I couldn’t get away with that. ‘Oh? Oh, okay. It’s through – Well, you know where it is.’
    ‘I do,’ she said. While she was in there, I was kicking myself for not cleaning the bathroom. Of course she’d have to use it. She’d driven all the way from the airport. I thought of my new prescription in the medicine cabinet and the hard-water ring around the toilet. Joe’s aftershave that I kept on the counter for quick fixes. Would she open it, inhale it like I did, press some on her wrists? Or would she dump it down the toilet? Had I left my underwear on the floor? The old ones with the two rips around the elastic?
    When she glided out, Zach ran over to me and grabbed my leg. I rubbed his back and handed her the kids’ health insurance cards, their pediatrician’s phone number, and some instructions including Annie’s allergy to Ceclor and Zach’s attachment to his Bubby. She didn’t smell like Joe’s aftershave, just her own jasmine citrus perfume, her signature scent that kept permeating my house. She took the insurance cards but handed me back Dr Magenelli’s number and the instructions. ‘Thanks. But I know Doc Magic and his number. Along with Annie’s allergy. And as far as instructions, Annie’s such a smart girl. I think she can help me with any questions that arise. But thanks, really. It was thoughtful.’ She tucked the insurance cards in her streamlined wallet, snapped it shut, slipped it back into her streamlined shoulder bag. She wore white pants and a peach silky shirt that looked perfect against her skin. She must have never covered herself with baby oil and baked in the sun on one of those foil-coated space blankets when she was a teenager. She looked slightly different from the last time I’d seen her. She’d cut her fringe, wispy, framing her eyes, making them look even bigger.
    ‘Let me get you their car seats,’ I said.
    ‘No need. The rental car has them