Boysenberry Jam

The moment Dean pulled off the Route 66 highway and stepped through the door of Mama Nell’s Diner, the smell of homemade boysenberry jam hit him like a willow switch across the face. The air was thick with bacon grease, coating his skin and clogging his arteries before he’d even taken a bite. Familiarity poked at his brain. He stumbled forward, tripping over his own feet and nearly taking out his wife as he peered around, searching for the pot of boiling berries, searching for Mama Nell.

“Dean, what on Earth are you doin’?” his wife, Rachel, asked, gripping the back of a nearby booth to keep from falling. He grabbed her slender shoulders to steady her, opening his mouth to explain, but before he could utter a word, he was thrown back in time.

“Dean? Dean!” Mama hollered from the kitchen. “Boy, get down here!”

Dean jolted upright, head spinning with sleep as he looked around his childhood bedroom. It was dark, a hint of light peeking through the curtained windows next to his desk. Dirt-stained jeans littered the timber floor, and his backpack lay next to the door where he’d left it at the start of summer break. When he took his first deep breath of the day, the smell of sweaty socks filled his lungs.

“Dean!” Mama hollered again.

Clambering out of bed, Dean tugged on the same pair of pants he wore the day before and slipped into a white t-shirt he snagged from the pile of clean laundry Mama left for him to put away two days ago. After checking his hair in the mirror, he pulled open the door and rushed downstairs to the kitchen. He knew better than to make Mama wait. She’d have his hide if she had to call his name a fourth time.

“I’m here, Mama,” he said, rounding the corner, walking straight into what felt like a spiderweb of grease. Mama stood in front of the stove, unflinching as bacon sizzled and popped, spattering on her arms. He resisted the urge to wipe his face, and instead planted a kiss on Mama’s cheek. But not before attempting to steal a piece of the glistening meat piled on a plate next to her. Mama slapped his hand away.

“Russell Dean Barrett, you keep those grubby hands away from this plate. Now, go wash up and set the table.” Mama pointed her metal spatula at the old porcelain sink, keeping her gaze on the sizzling skillet.

Dean watched her for a moment. She stood there, one hand on her aproned hip, humming to herself, smiling. She had on her blue dress, the one stained brown at the knees from all her time picking and pruning and singing to the plants in the garden. No matter how many times she scrubbed that thing, it still smelled like earth. Like home. Like her.

Today was going to be a good day. He knew it.

Crossing the room to the sink, Dean scrubbed his hands, making sure to scrape the dirt from underneath his fingernails, then crossed the kitchen to the hutch to grab the dishes. He set the table for two as Mama cracked a few eggs and dropped them in the pan.

“What’s the plan for today?” he asked, taking his seat across from the window. The window seat was Mama’s. She loved feeling the sun on her back; said it warmed her bones. On early mornings, much like this one, he liked watching the sun stretch its arms, yawning an orange breath into the waking sky before making its ascent, forming a halo around Mama’s head like an angel.

“Boysenberries,” she said, turning off the stove. “They’re ready for pickin’. Gotta get out there and get ‘em ‘fore the bugs do.”

Mama carried the skillet to the table and filled their dishes with eggs, bacon, and a few slices of toasted bread, slathered with her home-churned butter. Dean’s plate steamed, dancing through the air straight to his nose, making his mouth water.

Scanning the table, Dean saw one thing missing. “We got any of that jam left?”

“Nope. Used up our last jar a few days ago. Berries’ve been finicky last couple seasons. Been hopin’ for some good rain, and we got it. They’re good’n ripe today.”

Nodding his head, Dean grabbed his fork, the silver warming in his hand as he dove in, but Mama stopped him before he took his first bite.

“Boy, you know better than to stuff that mouth before grace. Hold your horses.”

Mama returned the skillet to the stove and crossed the kitchen to the fridge, pulling out a decanter of fresh orange juice, filling two glass cups to the rims. She set one in front of Dean, and the citrusy tang made his stomach growl. Mama smiled and shook her head.

When she sat down, she grabbed Dean’s free hand and closed her eyes, her voice steady and quiet as she thanked the Lord for their blessings. He listened, waited for the moment where she would squeeze his fingers, signaling him to say his small part. But halfway through, her voice trembled, and she stopped.

Dean opened his eyes. Mama stared at him, her eyes watery, her mouth pursed in that way when she had something to say but wasn’t sure if she should. Dean’s stomach twisted, thinking back over the last several months, to the days when she couldn’t get out of bed because her body hurt too much. She felt guilty for making Dean pick up the extra chores, even though he told her a hundred times he didn’t mind doing the work, that she needed to rest.

“You okay, Mama?” Dean asked, setting down his fork.

Mama fingered a piece of peeling white paint on the corner of the table. Her eyebrows twitched, and she looked like she wanted to turn away, change the subject, but Dean knew that what she needed to say was something he needed to hear, whether either of them were ready.

“Mama, what’s goin’ on?” His throat tightened, like a knot had formed, making it difficult to talk without squeaking, something he hadn’t done since turning seventeen eight months ago.

Mama swallowed, and Dean wondered if she had a knot in her throat, too, making it hard to say what she needed to say. He sat back in his chair, the legs creaking beneath his weight.

“Now I don’t want you makin’ a big fuss,” she started, patting the piece of peeling paint and grabbing her fork. “But I saw the doctor again yesterday about this pain I've been havin’.”

Dean watched her chop her eggs into little pieces, the yolks bursting as the silver tines punctured them, gushing like yellow paint across her plate. She sopped it up with her toast and took a big, drippy bite. The kitchen grew quiet as she chewed, slowly, absently, staring at the table with a blank look in her eyes. But Dean knew the gears were turning in her head, running faster than a rooster defending its flock. He knew why she didn’t want to say it, why the words were like pulling teeth, unwilling to leave that shadowed space in her head. Saying it aloud would make it real. And whatever it was, Mama didn’t want to bring it to life.

“The doctor said it’s somethin’ called Lupus.” She blurted it, threw the words out of her mouth like a pitcher hurling a baseball. It smacked him across the face, though he didn’t quite understand why it hurt, why that sentence made his heart stutter, why the twisting in his stomach turned into something else, something he didn’t have a name for. He’d never heard of anything called Lupus.

He swallowed. “Is that cancer or somethin’?”

Mama shook her head. “He said it’s some sorta disease that tricks your body, makes it attack itself. It’s been eatin’ up my joints. Now it’s got hold of my heart and kidneys, too.”

She stared at him, watching, waiting for him to react, to make a fuss. Something pulsed in his head, sharp and quick, making him want to close his eyes, to block out the pain, her words. But he fought it. Held her gaze. Blue on blue. It took him a minute to realize she wanted him to speak. To ask the questions she knew he was going to ask.

He cleared his throat, an attempt to dislodge the knot sticking like glue at the back of his mouth. “So… I s’pose he’ll put you on some sorta medicine, then. Right?”

Mama’s jaw clenched and she shook her head again, no nonsense. “Too late for that.”

Too late for that… The sentence bounced around his skull, splintering, making his ears wail like a siren. Tears pricked at his eyes, but he held them back knowing it would make her cry, too. And Mama hated crying.

He cleared his throat. Twice. That darn knot wouldn’t budge. When he spoke, it came out choppy. “What does this mean?”

Mama forked eggs into her mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. “It means that today, you’re learnin’ how to make boysenberry jam.”

When the memory faded, Dean found himself back at the diner, sitting in a booth, a greasy menu clutched in his hands. Rachel sat across from him, talking to a young waitress with long purple hair and makeup to match. Her name badge read Vie.

“So you both want two eggs over-medium, with bacon and a couple slices of toast?” Vie said, reading from the yellow notepad perched in her hand.

Rachel nodded, looking at Dean for confirmation.

Dean met Vie’s eyes and nodded toward the kitchen. “Is that homemade jam I smell cookin’ back there?”

Vie grinned. “Boysenberry. Mama Nell’s specialty. The berries’ve been finicky the last couple years, but this season has been good. Mama Nell spent all mornin’ in the garden. She says you gotta—”

“—get ‘em ‘fore the bugs do,” Dean finished, almost choking on the words.

The waitress laughed, a hearty sound that filled the room. “Exactly. Would you like to try some? Can’t go wrong with fresh jam.”

Dean nodded, handing over the menu with a smile. “Please.”

Vie nodded, scribbling on the notepad. “Okay, y’all, I’ll get this order put in and bring it out as soon as it’s ready. You let me know if you need anything.”

“Mama Nell,” Dean rushed, gripping the edge of the table. “Is that short for … Helen?”

Vie shook her head. “No, it’s Eleanor. But she hates going by her real name, so she goes by Nell.”

Dean’s lungs deflated. He knew it wasn’t his Mama Nell. Couldn’t have been, all these years later. But hope was a powerful thing, easier to swallow than the truth.

He nodded his thanks toward the girl and she walked away, disappearing behind a swinging door. Dean grew silent, stared at his empty hands—realized that he hadn’t thought of that day with Mama in a long time.

Guilt washed over him like a humid, Oklahoma heatwave.

“Dean…” Rachel said, her voice as sweet as fresh honey. She nudged a cup of steaming coffee into his hands—black, with two spoons of sugar, just as Mama liked it. The heat prickled his fingers.

He smiled, a shy curl of his lips, meeting his wife’s forest-green gaze. “Did I ever tell you about the day Mama taught me to make boysenberry jam?”

She shook her head, her chestnut hair falling over her shoulders. Sunshine lit up the few strands of silver framing her beaming face. “No, but I’d like to hear it.”

Dean drew a breath, that familiar tangy sweetness that nearly knocked him off his feet when he’d arrived, rewriting an almost-forgotten memory. He sat back in his seat, the old booth creaking beneath his weight, and began.

“Mama said you’ll know that a boysenberry is sweet enough for pickin’ when the bugs start comin’ around…”