The Underside of Joy

rigorously fucking a twenty-two-year-old. None of this was your fault. Or mine, for that matter.’
    I understood that she was right, that by finally speaking the truth about what I did know, I could see a more truthful version of what I as a child hadn’t known, couldn’t have known.
    My mom said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I should have known that the change in you was more than . . . I . . . just . . . it was easier for me; you were easier. And I guess, all these years, bringing up your father felt like digging up his grave. You know, let the dead be perfect. It’s all they have.’
    ‘It’s beginning to occur to me . . . perfection is a weight none of us can bear, alive or dead.’
    My dead perfect father. My dead perfect husband. No longer perfect in my mind. I knew I’d somehow freed them both and was even starting to free myself. But I still had a long way to go.
    ‘I wish you could have told me about this back then, Jelly. You kept this all to yourself ?’ I said I had to hang up, that the kids were walking in the door, even though they weren’t. I stood on the back porch, taking big, deep breaths. Callie sprinted up towards me and rubbed her muddy nose on my leg, thwacked me hard with her tail. Back from her most recent excavation.
    I went to get an old towel and wiped the fresh dirt off her nose and paws.

Chapter Twenty-three
    What was I doing? I had enough to figure out without unearthing old pain-laden memories. I needed to focus on the letters and try to unscrew all Joe’s screwing up, instead of focusing on my father’s just plain screwing my third-grade teacher almost thirty years before.
    I called Lucy and told her about the letters. Lucy whistled. ‘What do they say?’
    I told her I hadn’t read them yet, which she couldn’t believe. ‘They’re not addressed to me. Plus, it’s tampering with evidence. If –’
    ‘If you submit them as evidence, which you won’t.’
    ‘But then I’m withholding evidence.’
    ‘Look. I can come over. I’ll open them if I have to. You have to know what, exactly, you’re dealing with. I know the real reason you don’t want to open those letters, and it has nothing to do with breaking the law. Ella, you know. It’s about breaking your heart. And everyone else’s in this town.’
    ‘It’s about a lot of things,’ I said too quickly, too defensively. Lucy had my number. I told her I’d think about it.
    Later, in my kitchen, while I washed dishes and Marcella dried, I told her about the letters. She held a glass up to the light, rubbed it with the towel again. She set the glass in the cupboard before turning to me. ‘You,’ she said, ‘cannot believe that my Joey would have hidden those letters! Paige was in your house! She was there alone with the kids that day Aunt Sophia had one of her spells! That woman planted those letters there. It’s as obvious as the empty tomb.’
    ‘Marcella, they were postmarked.’
    She threw her arms in the air, the fat shuddering like a long afterthought. ‘They can do anything on the computer these days. That doesn’t mean diddly-squat. Have you read them?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘She abandoned my grandbabies, Ella. Zach was only two months old. He was still taking the breast! Do you know how much he screamed and cried those first weeks, while we tried to get him used to the bottle? I will remember those screams for the rest of my days. She has no rights as their mother. You are their mother. Now, behave like it. And don’t you go talking about your husband like he was some sort of lying criminal!’
    She turned and walked out. Joe Sr, who’d been feeding the chickens with the kids, heard the last of it as he came in through the kitchen door. He said, ‘Ella, I love you like you were my own. But I don’t know how Marcella will get up in the morning if she loses our two bambini along with Joe. A person can only take so much in one life. A family can only take so much.’ He ran his hand over his bald head and sighed. ‘My big brother? Lost to the war.’ He paused. ‘Even my papa – we lost for a while.’
    ‘But he came back.’
    ‘Yeah, but not the same as he was. Different.’ He reached out, held my shoulder. ‘And it wasn’t just Sergio, you know. Marcella’s papa, Dante. They took him too. They were treated like criminals when they did nothing wrong. I love this country. But I don’t trust the government when it comes to my family. Let ’em take all our money and call it taxes.