Well, I said again. I went to the armoire and pulled open the drawer and picked out three movies. The Sound of Music, Toy Story, and Beauty and the Beast. I walked to my room and closed the blinds and popped in The Sound of Music DVD. I took off my jeans and pulled on my sweats. The kids stood as if they were in a strangers house. Movies were for night; they knew the rules. In the kitchen I made popcorn, then climbed into bed with the bowls. After a few minutes, I patted both sides of the bed. Come on. And then I sang, Lets start at the very beginning and they climbed up onto the bed, giggling, plugging their ears. Another family joke Joe had started. Apparently, I didnt have the worlds best singing voice.
Zach held Bubby with one hand and took his bowl of popcorn with the other. Callie jumped up and stuck her nose in Annies bowl, then lay across the foot of the bed, chomping. We didnt get up to answer the phone. We didnt get up to answer the door. Shhhh, I said when we heard a knock, and they stifled their giggles in the pillows. Even Callie agreed not to bark. She just whined and thumped her tail against the mattress and cocked her head at us as if to say, You know, it could be him
With Joes picture gazing at us from the nightstand, we watched movies and we slept and we watched more movies. For dinner, I ordered a pizza delivered from Pascals and stuck in The Little Mermaid. I almost got up to change it as soon as I remembered that Ariel saved Prince Eric from drowning. But I left it in. It might upset them, but better that it happened when they were with me than somewhere else, like at a friends house. Or with Paige.
The storm came up. I wrapped my arms around each of them as Prince Eric fell to the bottom of the sea. I wondered again what it had been like for Joe. Had it been like Frank had thought, that hed hit his head right as he was pulled under, that he didnt even know he would never see us again? I hoped so. I hoped his last frame of reference was the frame through his lens of the rusty ragged sea cliff against deep blue sky, not thoughts of Annie and Zach crying in my arms. When Ariel lifted Prince Eric up, up, up to the surface, and brought him back to life with her beautiful voice, all three of us had tears streaming down our faces. Annie planted her wet cheek into my neck and said, I wish mermaids were real.
I said, Yeah, Banannie, me too.
Zach said, If I were King Triton, I would have ROARED so that all the fishes and mermaids would lift Daddy back up to the AIR! I muchly would. He laid his head in my lap and I smoothed his hair back. But then Zach started to sob, I want my DADDY ! I want my DADDY ! and Annie broke down too, yelling even louder than Zach, the same words, over and over.
I held on tight. I thought of Great-Grandma Just and her two children on that big ship, headed for the great unknown. Eventually Annies and Zachs yells and tears dissipated, their stuttered breaths evened out, and they finally slept, their small faces streaked with trails of dried salt.
Chapter Nine
The people of Elbow hung up their black clothes one day, and by the next week they were donning red, white, and blue. It was not out of disrespect for Joe, but in many ways in honour of him. In fact, Joe Sr and Marcella upheld their civic duty by being the first to swaddle their porch columns in Fourth of July banners, while the rest of the town soon followed their lead. Elbow does the Fourth of July like New York City does New Years Eve. And if we keep that exaggerated analogy going, Joe was our own Dick Clark, and the front porch at Capozzis Market was our own little Times Square. The Beach and Boom Barbeque was a forty-three-year tradition begun by Grandpa Sergio after the war, and it wasnt going to stop now. Yes, the man who had been sent to an internment camp apparently celebrated the Fourth with a vengeance. Joe had told me that it was such a part of their familys and towns tradition, hed never questioned it.
The people of Elbow hung up their black clothes one day, and by the next week they were donning red, white, and blue. It was not out of disrespect for Joe, but in many ways in honour of him. In fact, Joe Sr and Marcella upheld their civic duty by being the first to swaddle their porch columns in Fourth of July banners, while the rest of the town soon followed their lead. Elbow does the Fourth of July like New York City does New Years Eve. And if we keep that exaggerated analogy going, Joe was our own Dick Clark, and the front porch at Capozzis Market was our own little Times Square. The Beach and Boom Barbeque was a forty-three-year tradition begun by Grandpa Sergio after the war, and it wasnt going to stop now. Yes, the man who had been sent to an internment camp apparently celebrated the Fourth with a vengeance. Joe had told me that it was such a part of their familys and towns tradition, hed never questioned it.
Lucy found us in the garden. Zachs superheroes were taking over some long-lost planet from their spaceship Tomato Basket, and Annie had converted Callie into a horse.
I stretched my back and gave Lucy a hug. Your hairs warm, she said. I thought you guys would be in your costumes by now.
I shrugged. Its too weird. I cant even picture it without him.
I know. Youre going, though, right?
I nodded.
Annie said, I think we should wear our costumes, Mommy.
I thought you didnt want to, Banannie.
I didnt. But now I do. And I bet Zach does too.
Zach nodded and did his uh-huh thing while he threw Batman into the cucumbers. Since Joe had been the town crier who led the songs and read from the Declaration of Independence, the four of us had dressed up in period costumes every Fourth. Annie and I wore long dresses and bonnets; Zach and Joe had pantaloons and vests and black hats.
David was going to take over the emceeing, so he had already picked up Joes costume.
Okay, then, I said.
Okay, then. Annie hopped off Callie. Lets get this show on the road, people. And she led us up to the house to get changed.
A year ago, I had swayed in the front row, holding Zach on my hip, blowing a plastic kazoo, while my husband stood on the front porch of Capozzis Market and led the crowd in Youre a Grand Old Flag and America the Beautiful and Yankee Doodle Dandy. When he got to the line Ive got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart, shes my Yankee Doodle joy, hed pulled Annie and me and Zach all up onto the porch and twirled us around and around while the crowd cheered and the patched-together band played on. The whole day was one ultra-corny, amateur ode to nostalgia, and Id loved every minute of it. Can you see me? I was the one leading the march to the beach barbeque as if I were leading a top-university marching band, my happiness twirling up in the treetops and landing obediently in the solid grip of my hand.
None of us could have imagined then that the jovial man whod sung out, holding his hat to his heart in front of his grandpa Sergios store, would soon be a part of the history we celebrated. Or that hed been dancing on the front porch of his hidden failure. Now I languished towards the back, sweating in my long, heavy dress, nodding and smiling to those who offered hugs or squeezed my arm; there was nothing left for any of us to say. I got through the moment of silence held in Joes honour, and Yankee Doodle, but it was when David started us in on This Land Is Your Land, and we got to the line, From the redwood forest to the rivers waters those last lyrics Joe had changed to fit Elbow that tears ran down my cheeks. Lucy handed me a tissue. The tears werent all sadness, though. Joe was gone. But his land was my land, his town was my town, his kids were my kids. I really had found home when Id found Joe, and it was my home still.
Im scared, I told Lucy later, while we sat on a rock watching Annie and Zach build a sand castle that looked more like a sand Quonset hut, the crowd dispersing to head upriver for the fireworks. Across the river, hungry cries echoed from the large osprey nest on top of a dead tree that Joe had photographed less than a month before. I suddenly feel constantly aware of how much I can lose.
She put her arm around me. Most people in your circumstances cant even see anything past what theyve already lost.
Yeah. But not everyone has them. I jutted my chin towards the kids. I never let myself think like this before. It all feels ridiculously fragile.
You were kind of la-tee-da, Lucy admitted. I mean, no ones life is quite that carefree.
What do you mean?
Lucy blushed. I didnt mean well, you know. Nothing. Too much wine and too much sun make me blabber nonsense.
It stung. La-tee-da? But I didnt want to ask. Maybe Frank had told her about the store. Frank could be a blabbermouth, with or without wine and sun. While Annie and Zach scooped river water into their plastic pails, Callie and a border collie raced down the beach towards the water. No! I called out. But it was too late. They landed smack-dab on top of the kids sand creation and flattened it.
If Elbow was still my town, Capozzis Market was now my store, and the bills were now my bills. Julie Langer, one of the school moms, insisted on taking the kids for a play date that Saturday, and so I was left to worry about finances while I dug in my garden.
If only my garden were a true reflection of the workings of my inner soul. All that rich, fertile abundance in precise and ordered rows! No wasted space, no shrivelled stems. And that life-affirming fragrance of clean dirt. I loved the paradox and truth of those two words: Clean. Dirt.
I set down my hand weeder and picked up the compost bucket and headed over to the bins. Our compost was the secret to our garden. And the secret to our compost was keeping the moisture down, giving it enough nitrogen and just the right amount of stirring. This batch was heating up nicely and soon would be ready to spread on the garden. I stirred in the coffee grounds, the egg shells, and the rest of the kitchen waste, along with some magical chicken manure. I added dry leaves Id saved from the fall. Leaves Joe had raked.
The store, the store. What to do about the store? I didnt want to just let it die too. It had been so clear to me on the Fourth that along with being the familys legacy, the store was the heart of our town. Albeit a heart with badly clogged arteries. The tiny town of Elbow could no longer support its own store, and Capozzis wasnt snazzy enough to bring in the wine connoisseurs and the foodies. But the ever-expanding wine country surrounded us, and tourists flocked. Joe had been bugged that everyone in Sebastopol was chopping down their apple trees and putting in grapes, but after living down south, Id told him, Hey, vineyards beat the heck out of strip malls. Still it was a change he didnt welcome; he called wine country whine country.