Baked Goods

Strawberries grew wild in the field between the driveway and the curve of the road and years of cutting through had made something of a path through. Further down, a thicket of blackberry brambles grew wild and had to be cut back each summer to keep the flagpole clear. On warm summer mornings, Nana would send us out with small, plastic buckets to collect berries for pies, cobblers, muffins and jams. We emerged bloody and bruised but victoriously carrying full pails of sweet fruit that she would gently wash and drain and turn into all manner of pastries. By that afternoon, the whole house would be steamy and hot and reeking of wild fruit and Nana would be washing dishes and setting pies to cool on the window sills. The following day we would make rounds, delivering baked goods all over the island to the elderly and infirm, the lonely, the pastor and the postmistress and the factory workers. It's a small thing, Nana told me, but it makes a difference.

My mother sneered at this generosity, calling it a waste of time and unappreciated charity, but Nana ignored her. She preferred the company of the island women to that of her own daughter as a general rule, saying that poverty was more honest, that it built character, strength and resilience.
You can't be a spoiled brat when you're one of a dozen kids, she pointed out briskly, there's no room for selfishness when you're just trying to survive.

This lightly veiled reference to my parents' marriage was a theme of my grandmother's. While she believed in til death us do part, she also believed that marital mistakes should be corrected and that vows didn't apply in certain situations. She hinted that my mother had somehow tricked my daddy into marriage to get away from home and then nailed him down with children and responsibilities, knowing that he would never abandon her. It was a cruel thought, bitter and angry, but knowing my mother as I later came to, it wasn't impossible. Nana was mystified by her only child - her drinking, her indifference to her children, her selfishness and infidelities - all made my grandmother furious and ashamed and overwhelmed with guilt that somehow it was her fault. My daddy dismissed this with a wave of his hand, telling her with something almost like conviction, that she was making a mountain of a molehill, that it wasn't as bad as it appeared, that most of the blame was on him anyway - he worked all the time, hadn't been there, hadn't provided for her as she'd expected. I'm something of a disappointment to her, Alice, I heard him say, I'm not what she was counting on. My grandmother flared at this and railed at him but he laughed it off, gave her a hug and told her not to weary. She smiled at that and shooed him away to help pack the day's baked goods into the old Lincoln.

You're daddy's a damn fool, Nana told me, a good man, but a damn fool.