Berries and Blues

The family two doors down from our house on Mulberry Place got me thinking about people who were not Catholic people because that is what I gleaned from it at age six. Ones with funny smells in their houses--the smell of a bathroom, but it was their basement. Floating fumes of distress rose up from the carpet, ham-like, sour-pickle, and like piss sometimes. Maybe they didn’t collect bottles of cleaners under the cabinet the way my mom did. Maybe they couldn’t smell it anymore because I could not tell you the smell of my own house. We become immune.

But they were nice to me when my mom needed a sitter. They put the good TV shows on—Sesame Street, The Jetsons. I remember stacks of books and wooden toys splattered all over the house, not neatly arranged, the way my parents liked it. I appreciated their attention to keeping us educationally engaged.

It bugged me how the dad looked like he ate everything. At all times. And this is not fat-shaming--I comment on his repulsive swagger, like a glutenous dictator. He left nothing for the mom named Steph, he, probably 400 lbs, she, maybe 88. He was gruff and bizarre the way he poked his glasses back up in his nose, as if seeking more, more. She was quiet and obedient, and I felt bad for her. A voice so papery when she'd ask if I wanted more iced tea.

Best about their crumbling blue house was the side segment of garden which met the corher of their driveway. A small strawberry patch blossomed—white, then pink, then red. the babies much smaller than store strawberries, but sweeter, and the mom let me pick them. She showed me how to know which ones were prepared to leave their patch--to treat them gently, kindly, and with tenderness.

One Thursday, after a long and hot rain approaching sunset, I skipped down the street hoping to find people outside doing what they do after a late afternoon shower—a slow survey of their yards—a check-in with the soil upheaval or the newly arrived creatures and twigs. Steph was there—hands on her hips and the low mumble of my name to come see what she spotted near her strawberry patch.

“Look. More worms. And a few fresh mushrooms sprouting nearby.” I observed her findings with sheer curiosity. I stood next to her feeling like maybe she enjoyed my interest more than her own sons’. Kids get competitive like that. I got that way.

“Cool,” I probably said. I knelt down and grabbed a stick to get a worm to curl around it. The sun broke free through the 6pm clouds. She and I scanned the scene in beautiful summer silence until the MISTER stomped out into the yard demanding to know why Dave’s bike wasn’t up on its kickstand.

“The rain may have knocked it down,” she choked on the word knocked. He grunted at her, and I hated him. I remained present with her and pointed to a few more worms. Maybe she wished for a daughter as much as I wished for a sister, and this was just nice for the few minutes I stayed. I waited for him to return to the house, but I knew he wouldn’t until she picked Dave's bike off its side and put in back on its kickstand.

A few days later I strolled by. She knelt on her long flowy denim skirt with a basket at arm’s length. Strawberry harvest.

“Would you like to take some home to your mom?”

"I think so, yes."

"They will need to be eaten soon."

I joined her and we sorted the berries. I’d take few, and she kept the ones she said she’d like to add to her cobbler. A recipe from her church group. She said she went every Monday morning and they exchanged recipes, book suggestions, parenting stories, and her favorite—sewing patterns. Part of me wanted to go with her and the other half of me was frightened that these women were the reason she stayed in this house with him and his beastly ways—like maybe the women were not open to helping her leave her own home with her three boys. How all of this occurred to me at age 6, I don’t know. I swear intuition begins much earlier than we acknowledge.

They were our neighbors, but not exactly close friends. Again--he seemed to take it all, and left nothing for his two sons, my peers, and sweet Stephanie. She lived at 88 pounds, full of mindfulness, yet he with a loud, scary voice: "Where's my bologna sandwich?"

He wore black socks in brown sandals, and housed a belly that could suffocate all three of them. Or eat them whole one day. Part of me liked to imagine how one day maybe she’d accidentally forget to wash the strawberries after someone accidentally poured extra fertilizer over a strawberry plant and he’d choke on the poison. Part of me liked to imagine that one day he’d miss a step coming down into the backyard and he’d stumble and land on the wrong part of his buried neck bone and “Oh what a freak accident, did you hear? What a tragedy?”

I haven’t thought about Stephanie in a very long time until a more recent reunion with me and the way I fell in love with summer fruit—and how fruit is what drove me to love summer as a kid. That and the beach, but there was something so intense about the fruits like peaches and grapes and berries in a stainless bowl in my sink. Floating, magnified, and plump. Remembering Steph as my neighbor almost embarrassed me because why didn’t I ask more questions back then? Why didn’t I ask my own mom how someone so sweet and kind could live with a man so angry and odd? Why didn’t I ask my mom how we could help her out of something that maybe she wanted to leave?