Spike turned the truck off the highway, through the one intersection of the little town, and up the steep hill. Toward the top, their house perched on the slope. Rooms and wings had been added as the children came, and windows peered out of unexpected places.

Three bicycles lay in the gravel of the drive. Spike pulled the truck up short, stuck his head out the window, and whistled. The boys appeared and scuttled off with their bicycles.

“Sorry, Dad.”

“I’ll sorry your ass!” He pulled the truck up to the garage and climbed out.

“Send me down a beer. I’ve got to finish a trailer I’m building for the guy who wired the basement. You know him. Old Brodigan.”

Inside, Jean stood over a pot of sweet-looking purple goo. Her face was pink.

“How are you? Taste this. I’ve been smelling it all day and can’t taste it anymore. Does it need sugar?”

I licked the spoon of grape jam she offered and smacked my lips.

“You can go with the kids for blackberries in a little while. Does he need beer?”

She emptied the jam into small, shining jars, and topped each jar with wax from a smaller pot. The hot jam sizzled and popped as it was poured, and began to thicken as soon as it was silent. The wax formed a scum atop the jam. The hot kitchen excited me.

Jean wiped her face with a cloth and retrieved a beer from the refrigerator, snapped it open, and poured it against the side of a glass.

“Want me to take it to him?”

“No. I haven’t seen him all day. You can wash the pot. Did he tell you we’re going back to high school?” She chuckled at the glass of beer in her hand.

“What?”

“He wants to get his equivalency. The union’s cracking down. Even with fifteen years seniority he can’t get the best jobs without a diploma. It’s a night course.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, I just thought it’d be nice. The damn kids are getting snooty about how well-educated they are. Keep calling me a dropout.”

She laughed her way down the steps to the basement. Listening, I heard the smack of his palm flat on her ass.

The sun was low when we set out for the blackberries. The kids wrestled in the back seat. Buckets bounced in the trunk. Jean pulled the car off into the grass and the crowd tumbled out.

“This is Mrs. Wright’s place. I make her bread every week and we get all our fruit here in return. Her old man died a few years ago and she’s letting the place go. She’s too old to keep it up.”