Sally A.

Moore Raspberry Jam

Raspberry Jam

Evan looks like a butterball turkey, thawed, all wobbly and wings flapping. Patrick places

him on the table, buckles the navy corduroy straps of his overalls. Evan laughs at the snap snap

sound, his mouth wet and shiny, his tongue red with raspberry jam. Wide glass-like eyes,

wondrous blue, stare at Patrick. Sit still! But Patrick doesn‟t say it, only thinks it. Because Evan

has never in his two years of life ever sat still.

Patrick notes the half-empty bottle, rolling over the counter. It makes a hard sound, rounding

over the lip of the sink, remnants of discarded food stuck to its label. Dishes litter the kitchen,

cigarette ash smears the ceramic. Rolly is back.

Patrick lifts what‟s left of his homework: scrawls of green ink against foolscap, covered with

splotches of jam. It is a sticky mess, the offending seeds sprawled across the page. Ruined.

Patrick shoves it into his backpack. Evan giggles. Patrick grabs the boy‟s coat from a chair and

takes Evan‟s arm to ease it into the sleeve.

“No!” Evan is emphatic. Evan always knows what he wants, what he won‟t tolerate.

It is eight oh five. Too late to argue. Patrick drapes his own coat over his brother and heads

for the door. It is a small house, war-time old, with arborite counters, dingy wooden cupboards,

laminate flooring. A thinned rug in the hallway shows twenty years of tracked dirt. Patrick steps

onto the front porch, tightens the coat around Evan. Down on the sidewalk, a bracing wind

blows back their hair, and Evan closes his eyes, turns his cheek into Patrick‟s cupped palm.

The driver looks annoyed as Patrick fumbles for his bus pass, and Evan holds out his
Sally A. Moore Raspberry Jam

raspberry-stained hands. I’m sorry, Patrick thinks, but I can’t pour vodka over cornflakes.

Remember to buy milk, Patrick thinks.

He shifts Evan in his arms and takes a seat across from a bulky man in a ski jacket. There is

a metal lunch pail and a hard hat between the man‟s spattered steel-toed boots. Patrick sees him

on this bus every day, sitting with large-boned hands suspended between his knees, ready to jump

up at his stop. Then the man walks down to the corner where a battered blue pick-up waits for

him. Patrick can picture him arriving home after work, eating roast chicken with his family.

The vehicle lurches to a stop and Big Man leaves the bus. Evan starts his lalalala, which he

does when he is singing to himself. Or maybe he is counting the streetcars that press past the

bus, leaving wisps of dust against the windows.

Evan‟s stop. Patrick tucks his arm under Evan‟s to secure him to his body and exits the bus.

The ladies at daycare are kind, but they look at their watches as Patrick brings his brother through

the door. Little depictions of trains, in blue, green, yellow chug around the borders of the room,

their faces faded and seams fraying. At a blue table, a group of four-year-olds are having tea,

their dishes splayed in fashionable disarray in front of them, and fake cookies spilling off a

plastic plate.

“Mom‟s going to get him at four,” Patrick says, and hands over Evan.

He reaches behind him and pulls Evan‟s blue jacket from his backpack. He pries the

homework, raspberry-cemented to the fabric, from the hood.

Back on the bus, and then to Patrick‟s stop. He steps onto the frozen sidewalk, turns toward

Slater Street. He is late, but she‟s there, standing with a group of school girls and a nun in a

black cowl, white collar and mid-length dark skirt. He knows the girl‟s name is Nora. She has

copper hair, long thin nose, clear green eyes, and skinny legs. Today, her plaid skirt is down

2
Sally A. Moore Raspberry Jam

around her knees, her white shirt tucked in, and her tie pulled straight up to her neck. She turns

curious eyes toward Patrick, displays the beginnings of a smile; her friends begin to talk, giggle.

The nun steps forward, hands waving. A yellow bus pulls up to the curb. Nora turns away, puts

one thick black sole forward and climbs onto the bus.

The bell has long since rung. Patrick walks the hallway, with its chipped walls and soiled

lockers, and its floors coated in sloppy layers of varnish. There is the distant shuffle of students

settling in to home room. He turns into the principal‟s office. Mr. Lockhead. Lunkhead, the

kids call him, but he isn‟t a bad guy.

“Hey, Patrick. Bad morning?” Mrs. Parson, who runs the office for Lunkhead, directs

curious eyes at him.

The windows are obscured by wood and frosted glass to compartmentalize the space, and the

light is dull here. Patrick shrugs, pushes a stray mass of hair from his forehead. Mr. Lockhead

comes out of his office.

“Going to class today are we?” Lunkhead asks. He wears a yellowed shirt, and a thin tie, and

dark heavy-framed glasses that adults think makes them look „cultural‟.

“Skip home room,” Patrick says. “Not much point.”

Lunkhead nods, scribbles on a notepad and hands the paper to Patrick. “Tell your Mom I

need to see her. This is the third time this week.”

“Okay.” For all the good that would do.

Patrick reports for history, watches as Corry flops down in the seat across from him.

“Where‟s Tony?” he asks.

Corry shrugs, grins. “Escaped. He‟s going to Afghanistan.” Then he laughs.

Patrick stares ahead at the wasted expanse of blackboard, made grey by layers of rubbed

3
Sally A. Moore Raspberry Jam

chalk. Corry shifts his long legs under his desk, slides down on the plastic chair, and taps his

fingers against the hard surface of his history book. A thousand miles away from this place.

Patrick hears every tick of the clock, every squeak of the write board, every sniff of Cindy

Lofkin‟s breath through her asthma-swollen membranes. He scribbles on his notebook, tries to

remember what he wrote in his homework, but the words will not come.

By noon, he has reconstructed it between scattered thoughts of the American Civil War and

snippets of Barrett Brown.

“Patrick.” It is Ms. Barry, a large-framed woman with swollen cheeks and fleshy hands. “I

can barely read this.”

It is four o‟clock now. He has been asked to stay late and talk to his English teacher. He

likes the way her skin is all doughy and soft, not like the skinny arms of his mother, who seems

tragic and frail.

Patrick gives her a sour smile, “You should have seen the first copy.” Then he laughs. Ms.

Barry and the tragedy of the raspberry homework.

Ms. Barry takes a seat at her desk, folds her fingers before her like soldiers crouching in the

field. “Patrick . . . you know the end of the term is coming?”

Patrick watches the steady traffic of students outside the classroom. He envies the shuffle,

the scurry, the clack of their shoes against the concrete. “Yeah.”

“You have real talents, I think you could do things. You have a gift for English.”

He watches the creases of her face deepen, the frown push back her heavy cheeks. She

means well. Patrick toys with the little Scottie dog she keeps on her desk. It reminds him of

Evan, who squeals whenever he sees a puppy.

“You are going to have to go to summer school. You can do this work if you just get down

4
Sally A. Moore Raspberry Jam

to it.” She tilts her head up at him, draws his gaze. “I think you need to—get away from things.

I could get you a subsidy, and you could do a retreat, out of the city.”

Patrick shakes his head. “I have to work this summer.”

“I could tutor you after class. You could make some of this up. And then, when you go on

the retreat, you could focus on some things that interest you, get ahead of things.”

And what about Evan? Who would look out for Evan?

“I gotta get home, my mother has to work. Thanks Ms. Barry.”

He gets off the bus, and walks up Somerset. The worn porch welcomes him: the torn screen

door, the cracked living room window, the planks that lead a tired path to the entrance of the

house. But it‟s different today. He pauses at the top step, turns, looks back out onto the street.

Tufts of dirty snow clump against the asphalt; there is the constant stream of cars heedless of the

speed bumps, and black trees that loom bare over the houses.

He hears Evan, giggling, the clank of cutlery hitting the floor. Inside, Patrick puts down his

backpack, takes the milk out of a canvas bag, and throws his coat over a peg on the wall. Now

he can sense what‟s different. The thick, earthy scent of barley soup mixes with the shock of

ammonia rising from the floors and furniture. Granny Beal.

She is broad, capable. The tips of her fingers are thick, and her palms flat and wide. She

doesn‟t smile, only nods as he enters the kitchen. She takes the milk, and passes Evan to him.

“Get him to sit in his chair. We‟re going to feed him a proper meal for once.”

Patrick grins at Evan, who is slapping his cheeks with ruddy fingers. “Hey, Ev, you hungry?”

“Hungry, Pat!”

He places Evan in a booster chair, pushes it up to the table.

“Well? Go wash up and sit down. And tell your mother to get out here. I‟m not running a

5
Sally A. Moore Raspberry Jam

restaurant.” Granny Beal pushes streaks of brown hair behind her thick ears. Her body stout,

impassable, she lays one hand on the back of a chair, a ladle raised in the other.

“Mr. Lockhead wants to see you,” Patrick smiles, leaning on the doorway of his mother‟s

bedroom. Katie looks wan, more than usual, and her arms are slow as she lifts her lipstick to her

face. “I was late again.”

“Never mind, Pat. I‟ll sort it out.”

“What‟s Granny doing here?” he says, but he is thinking how good the soup smells. And

how foreign that feels. And how much he resents Granny Beal for making him think that.

Katie pushes her arms into a cotton blouse and buttons the front over her chemise. “Pat . . .

sorry about this week. Temporary lapse. I promise.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I kicked him out. For good. Geez, that‟s enough.” Evan‟s dad. A truck driver, who is

almost never around, but whenever he is, Katie has one of her „lapses‟. Patrick hates the way he

smells, like urine is buried in the straggly recesses of his beard. “Anyway, Corrine needs us. She

lost her house.”

“She‟s staying here?”

Granny Beal does not like his mother. Ever since Katie sent his father to jail. Pat can still

see the red gash in his father‟s left thigh as he tore across the carpet, legs naked and underwear

stained crimson. He was swearing, screaming at his mother, who lay wounded in the corner. It

was only a kitchen knife. But it was all Patrick could think to do.

“Jim skipped out on his bail. Some drug charge. And drained her account. So much for

motherly devotion.”

They sit like a family at the kitchen table. Granny Beal says a silent prayer over folded

6
Sally A. Moore Raspberry Jam

fingers and passes a basket of thick-sliced bread to Patrick. Evan has barley stuck to his cheeks

and warm gravy pouring over his chin. Katie smiles, pushes a strand of pale blonde hair back

into her pony tail, and brushes her hand over Evan‟s mouth.

“Heard Evan was a mess at daycare,” Granny says.

“Yeah,” Patrick answers, “I should have let him go hungry.”

“When you are done with dinner,” Granny frowns, “you can take those to the beer store.”

She waves her hand at the side door where a blue recycle bin sits, loaded with empty bottles.

“Maybe you could use the money. And then you can do your homework. I‟ll be putting Evan to

bed.”

The counters are wiped clean, the dishes stacked three high on the drain board. Laundry sits

in a basket by the door to the back room, ready to be washed. A dozen apples round over a bowl

in the centre of the table.

“Fine,” he says, and glares at Granny Beal.

Granny returns his stare through hard grey eyes, then goes back to her soup, her square

fingers lifting the spoon, angling it into the liquid and driving it expertly to her mouth. This rigid

new presence in his life.

His mother is playing a clapping game with Evan before heading off to work. A sing-song of

laughter regales them at the table.

“Mom?” Patrick says, shifting his gaze from the granite person at the head of their table.

“There‟s this retreat thing at school they want me to take.”

-30-