The Underside of Joy

amazing thing.’
    My throat clenched. I shook my head, heard Zach’s voice, ‘Mommy’s here! Mommymommymommy!’ He ran to me, holding a stuffed T rex in a Hawaiian shirt, and I picked him up and did not cry. Lizzie looked away. Annie came out and slipped her hand through my belt loop. And I did not cry.
    I thanked Lizzie, the kids thanked Lizzie. We drove the four blocks home. I didn’t know how to tell them, because the reality still circled around, like the tip of a shark that would soon eat us alive.
    I knew I didn’t want Annie to piece together bits of whispered conversations on my end of late-night telephone calls. I also didn’t want Paige to tell her first. Gwen had insisted that I be the one to tell the kids, and while the judge had agreed, he’d given me only two days.
    I didn’t wait that long. I sat them down on our back porch with the lemonade Popsicles we’d made together, Zach spilling a good portion of the lemonade onto the kitchen floor. I squeezed myself between the two of them and said, ‘Something happened today that I need to talk with you about.’
    Annie looked up at me. Her fringe was clipped back with a pink barrette – probably the work of Lizzie’s daughter – and she looked more and more like Paige. ‘What?’
    ‘Well, you know your mama Paige?’
    They both nodded, and Annie said, ‘Of course, silly.’
    I forced a smile. ‘Of course you do. You see, when Daddy died, she and I had a . . . disagreement . . . about where the two of you should live. She thought you should live with her. I wanted you to stay here with me. So when two people can’t agree, sometimes they go to a place called court and talk about it until a decision is made. And this morning? It was decided that both of you should live with Mama Paige right now.’
    ‘Why?’ Zach said. He’d been swinging his chubby legs, kicking the lattice beneath the porch, and he stopped, searching my face. His Popsicle dripped streaks down his wrist, his arm, and onto his big-boy jeans.
    Because I blew it. Because I didn’t fight hard enough for you. Maybe I didn’t do what a real mother would have done.
    ‘Because,’ I said, ‘since Mama Paige is your . . . birth mother, she wants to have more time with you than she’s had.’
    ‘Why? Because I was in her tummy?’
    ‘Because. She loves you. And she really, really misses you.’
    Annie finally spoke. ‘What about you? You love us.’
    ‘Yes.’ I swallowed. ‘I love you very, very much. And I will miss you.’
    ‘Are you sad?’
    I nodded. ‘ But. You and Zach will have a wonderful new adventure. You’ll get to live in your mama’s big, beautiful house with your own rooms and play with lots of new friends. And I will still get to visit you.’
    ‘ Visit us? Like Nana Beene visits us?’ Zach asked.
    ‘Yes. Sort of like that.’
    His eyes went wide; his sticky chin crumpled up in a trembling mass of dimples. I pulled him to me and held him in the crook of my arm.
    He said, ‘No way, José.’
    Annie said, ‘You promised !’ Her voice shook, and a tear traced down her cheek. ‘You said you’d never leave us! You lied. ’
    ‘Annie, I never wanted this to happen. I love you. I promise. I –’
    ‘Don’t promise me anything !’ She threw her Popsicle, scrambled up, and started to run into the house, but then she turned around at the door, hands hanging at her sides, tears streaming, eyes on me. ‘You pinkie promised! You said never, ever!’
    ‘Come here, Banannie.’ She ran into me, and the three of us huddled on the porch, Zach wailing now too.
    Annie said through her sobs, ‘I don’t wanna be brave anymore.’ I stroked their hair. Two clouds drifted on the horizon, wispy white as baptism gowns. ‘You can cry,’ I told her. ‘You can be angry. That doesn’t mean you’re not brave.’
    Even to this day, when I play it over in my mind, our good-bye happens in the slowest of motion, but in reality it happened quickly. I guess Judge Stanton believed in the fast-ripping-off-the-Band-Aid approach. But people aren’t Band-Aids.
    Two days later, the day before Annie’s seventh birthday, the cold morning sky low and grey, Paige stood outside in a teal silk dress and heels, opening the car doors, opening the trunk. Inside, Annie led Zach through their circle of embraces and kisses: Marcella and Joe Sr, David and Gil, Lucy, Frank, Lizzie, Callie, Thing One and Thing Two, until the two of them stood in front of me, looking up, waiting.