No, bud. You cant.
Because our stuff is all over it?
Thats exactly why. You are one smart crusader.
Even without my cape?
Even without your cape.
The overhaul of Capozzis Market began immediately. The whole family joined us all the aunts and uncles and cousins. The next weekend, close to everyone in Elbow turned out. I hauled away boxes of canned goods and disassembled shelving until my arms and legs and back throbbed, and then woke up the next day and did it again. Frank helped a crew working on a greenhouse-type addition at the back of the store for the winter months, when the rain would deter even the most diehard picnickers.
Frank told me he was looking forward to having his coffee by the fire in the mornings. We stared at each other for a long moment, his eyes saying how much he missed Joe. I hadnt seen him enough since Joe died; hed come by a few times, but it had just felt awkward and sad, both of us lonely for the same person, neither of us able to be that person for the other. Lizzie even stopped by with a big cooler full of drinks and snacks. She nodded in my direction but talked to David, not me, then slipped back out, waving to and hugging one person after another. I wondered if shed talked to Paige, if theyd mocked my What are your intentions? question.
But Paige had called Annie only a few times since our conversation, and I hoped that she might be pulling back a bit. At least I kept telling myself that she was.
At first, the fact that we were taking apart Joes store lay thick and cold as the morning fog, and we moved hesitantly, quietly. Me wondering: Why didnt we do this a long time ago, together? Why did Joe have to die before we fixed this? But the mood lightened when I began to feel Joe cheering us on. I saw what it must have been like for him to feel it slipping away, that it had begun to represent failure and that perhaps from wherever he was now, he might be relieved. Maybe even proud.
I was taking down the family photographs when Joe Sr came up and said, Where are you going to put those?
Im not sure, but definitely in a prominent place. Where do you think they should go?
He took one from me. It was an old black-and-white. Someone had written in black in the corner, Capozzis Market, 1942. Grandma Rosemary stood with two boys in front of the store.
Which one was you? I asked.
He pointed to the youngest, a boy of about seven or eight wearing a tilted cap and a smudge on his face. The other boy looked like a teenager. I didnt know you had an older brother.
He nodded. He died in the war. Fighting for this country.
Im sorry. That must have been hard. He nodded again, still staring at the photograph. Hey, wheres Grandpa Sergio? Is he taking the picture?
He shook his head. No. He gave his son to fight against Italy, but he wasnt a citizen yet, so
I held up another photo, also dated 1942. Hes not in this one, either.
No, honey. My papa wasnt around when those pictures were taken Like Ive said, he had to go away for a while. These photos were taken when he was in the camps. I knew but I didnt ask. And with that, Joe Sr handed back the photo and turned and walked out the door. I understood. Id grown up in a family that didnt talk about certain things, and I felt most at home not asking the questions.
I shuffled through the frames until I came to one, taken later, on the same front porch, with Sergio, Joe Sr, and Joe, as a toddler. Joes arms were up, as if he were about to call a touchdown. Both men smiled down at him.
I forced myself to get up in the morning to do not only the things I needed to do, but also some of the things I loved. I fulfilled my duties at the store and spent time with Annie and Zach. Sometimes, in moments that felt a bit like grace, I combined the two, having them help me with restocking, deciding what picnic spots would be featured on the Lifes a Picnic map, which Clem Silver had agreed to draw; hed even ventured down to the store for a meeting.
At the store, I kept pulling out craft projects for the kids, and in between sanding and painting and hammering, Id sit down to join them. I found an odd satisfaction in making messes and cleaning them up. I tried to keep my mind clear of anything but the task at hand, whether it was mixing shrimp and mango curry salad or deciding on a pattern for a beaded necklace, then following it exactly: two blue wooden beads followed by three green glass beads followed by one silver. No surprises. As predictable as the minutes ticking by. Until the time I pulled too hard and the string broke, scattering beads under the refrigerator case so that I could retrieve only enough to make a bracelet. And I remembered that even time especially time was far from predictable.
We worked in the garden too harvesting more vegetables than we could ever use. I took bags of artichokes, tomatoes, basil, and more to Marcella and David, who added them to our menu creations.
I made juice Popsicles for Annie and Zach like my mom had made for me, in her old Tupperware Popsicle mould. I even filled Dixie cups with a Milk-Bone and chicken bouillon and froze them for Callie. I was on top of things in a way I never had been. Certainly, I assured myself, in a way Paige had never been and never could be. I was the poster woman for the perfect widow/mother/store saver/dog lover.
But then something would remind me that I really wasnt all that.
One day I opened the freezer to find Zachs action figure frozen in a plastic cup of solid ice. Batman lay cold, masked, unmoving, his right arm reaching out for me, urging me to set him free. Zach ran in, sweaty and smudged, asking for apple juice. I held out the human Popsicle, and he said, Mr Freeze zapped him. For days, whenever I opened the freezer, I found another victim of Mr Freezes in a pie plate or plastic container: Spider-Man, Superman, Robin; apparently even villains like the Joker and Catwoman could not dodge Mr Freezes ice machine.
I left them, but soon there was no room in the freezer. Zach, I said. Honey? What do you want to do with all these frozen guys? We dont have any room.
He shrugged. I cant do anything. Dr Solar has to rescue them.
I asked him when he thought Dr Solar might show up.
He looked out at the fogless morning. Today probably.
Later, as I hung up clothes on the line, admiring how Grandma Rosemary had held it all together with Sergio gone part of me tempted to pretend Joe was unfairly locked behind a chain-link fence with barbed wire instead of under a headstone I heard Zach let out a scream that gave me goose bumps, even in the warm sunshine. I ran up to the house. Zach stood on the back porch, face red, tears streaming.
Look what you made me do! he wailed.
On the porch, in the direct sun, were the seven plastic containers Zach had lined up that morning, action figures floating facedown in the melted ice.
Now theyve all DROWNED!
Oh, honey Why hadnt I thought this through?
And theyre DEAD! And theyre never, ever, ever coming back! Even when Im a big boy.
I wanted to save every one of the masked hard bodies, the Caped Crusader, the Boy Wonder. I dumped out the water, pointed out that they all had superhuman powers, anyway, and could defy their untimely deaths. Zach had spent hours playing with them every day, and I wanted him to keep enjoying them. But he insisted on burying them. He wanted to have a funeral for them. And I didnt try to fix this for him, because I couldnt fix the rest.
So I held him while he sobbed, and I helped him bury the plastic bodies out behind the chicken coop. Zach never asked me again when Daddy was coming back.
He began to understand, bit by bit, then more and more, the difference between Joes death and Paiges departure, and lifes never-ending track of good-byes.
Chapter Thirteen
By mid-September, the kids had started school, and we were ready to reopen the store.
We kept the old capozzis market sign and, just under it, hung the new sign, lifes a picnic. There was still plenty of picnic weather during the Indian summer, and then the mostly pleasant fall days before the rains set in. But even in the winter, there would be plenty of sunshine between storms that would be perfect for picnickers. The greenhouse addition would provide a backup spot for when the rainstorms came in the deep of winter, and we also set round café tables and chairs on the covered front porch and in one corner of the store, near the woodstove.
Most of the aisles were gone. The deli counter ran along one entire wall. Wed stocked it with an abundance of cold salads everything from curry chicken to eggplant pasta, and of course Elbows famous elbow macaroni salad, which was your basic macaroni salad with salami thrown in, but we called it famous because of the Elbow connection. We offered sandwiches of every kind imaginable, including our Stuffed Special, made from hollowed-out bread rounds and filled with layers of meats, cheeses, vegetables, and pesto. Everything was made from scratch with fresh ingredients, locally grown whenever possible, grass-fed beef, free-range chickens, no hormone additives, and a whole lot of organic. I knew enough about biology and growing vegetables that I had become a pesticide paranoid, and I wanted to make sure that I was nourishing our customers, not slowly poisoning them. Yes, it was more expensive to use top-quality ingredients, and yes, our prices reflected that, but my gut which happened to be fairly healthy, as far as I knew was telling me people were ready for Lifes a Picnic.
In the centre of the store, Peruvian and Guatemalan picnic baskets of different shapes and sizes were on display. Blankets and tablecloths hung from hooks down the sides. Retro board games of all kinds Sorry! Scrabble, checkers, and more were set out to play; new ones were available to buy. There were four half aisles between the eating area and the deli counter, stocked with wines, crackers, and speciality food items. Behind those were the glass-doored refrigerator cases, stocked with beer, soft drinks, juices, and twelve different kinds of water. Bottled Cokes cooled on ice in the newly restored old-fashioned Coke machine, which Id unburied from a corner of Marcella and Joe Srs barn. Joe had always intended to restore it and use it at the market but hadnt got around to it. With my new appreciation for not putting things off until someday, Id called a place in Santa Rosa called Retro Refresh.