The Underside of Joy by Seré Prince Halverson

yard. Annie’s giggle spilled from their room. I walked down the hallway and opened the door. There, in our rocker, were Annie and Zach, sitting on Paige’s lap. Zach was brushing a whisk of her silky hair against his cheek. Paige’s arms looped in a fence around both of them; her hands held out an open book, like a gate. The book was by Dr Seuss, one that had been in the crate from the closet. The cover screamed at me: Are You My Mother?

Chapter Six
    ‘I missed my plane,’ she said, closing the book and holding it face down. ‘Marcella should be back in a minute. She went to check on Auntie Sophia.’
    I nodded, kept nodding. My body shook so hard that one of my knees buckled. A crow shrilled, Caw-caw-caw, through the still damp air, staking its claim on a favourite branch or fence post.
    Annie grinned at me, but Zach had already slid off Paige’s lap and grabbed my leg. I picked him up, inhaled his fresh, loamy scent, now mixed with the increasingly familiar scent of Paige’s perfume – jasmine, I was pretty sure. And citrus. But it had echoes of Macy’s, not a garden or an orange grove.
    My mother, who’d walked in behind me, placed her hand firmly on my back. ‘Hello,’ she said to Paige. ‘Will you be needing a taxi to the airport, then?’
    Paige shook her head. ‘I’ve got the rental car.’ She looked at her watch. ‘And it’s just about time to go.’
    That, I thought, is an understatement.
    I said, ‘It can take a couple hours if you run into traffic . . . Where are you flying to?’ Siberia? Antarctica? The Moon ?
    ‘Las Vegas. I left my card on the coffee table . . .’
    Why the hell would I want your card?
    ‘. . . so the kids can call anytime.’
    Why would they want to call you? They don’t even know you. They know the plumber better than they know you and they don’t call him.
    She hugged Annie for an excruciatingly long minute. My mom raised her eyebrows again. The crows cawed again. The Corvus brachyrhynchos. Crows have a bad rap, but they’re highly intelligent, extremely adaptable birds, and I’m always defending them when people complain. Their calls all have many different meanings. I was pretty sure this one was sounding out a warning of some type. Paige finally let go of Annie, got up, and reached for Zach, whom I held a bit too tight. His smile was shy, but he went to her. ‘Bye, Zach.’ Her voice cracked again. Tears magnified her blue eyes, those eyes that looked so much like Annie’s. She kept them from spilling, intent, it seemed, on not making a scene. I gave her credit for that much.
    ‘Good-bye, Lady,’ Zach said.
    She handed him back to me. Finally, finally, Paige stepped out the door, slipped into her high heels, and clicked down the porch stairs.
    Her perfume stuck around. I followed Annie to the great room, which Joe had fondly dubbed the not-so-great room. She sat at the watery glass window and watched Paige drive away.
    ‘Banannie? Are you okay?’ I went to her and knelt beside her.
    ‘I . . . want . . . my . . . daddy,’ she said in a whisper.
    ‘I know, honey. I know.’ I held her, but she turned her head so her gaze stayed on the empty gravel river of driveway and the dust clouds Paige left behind. I didn’t know what to say about Paige. She’ll be back? I didn’t know what she was planning on doing . . . or being . . . for Annie and Zach.
    Zach tore in the room. ‘Hey, mister!’ he said, pointing to my boots. ‘Shoes go outside. Come on, I’ll show ya.’
    My mom raised her eyebrows once again. She could never have Botox; her chief mode of communication lay in her forehead. I said, ‘Hey, mister? I’m no mister, mister!’ He laughed. ‘And these boots were made for walking, not for sitting out on some old porch.’
    He stood for a minute with his head tilted, looking up, pondering my statement. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ my little boy said, an expression he’d learned from his grandpa. Then he went outside and pulled on