trucked out to the factory to be cooked into jam. On the next run, before one of my brothers backed up the truck to the delivery bay, I took a cherry from the basket beside me and bit into it to redden my lips.
Apricots were next, and the sight of them ripening made me restless. I wanted to pick them two full days before they were ready.
August had barely begun when war was declared and my brothers enlisted, even the twins, considered too young to handle the driving but suddenly old enough to fight. Pete and Pat, always said in that order so that our father could make a joke of saying pitty-pat, but with them gone he said it a lot less. I did feel for him, then. Even so, the absence of all of my brothers meant I could drive the fruit runs. I could also see John alone. During the next weeks, over the steaming kettles of apricots, raspberries and blueberries, we stole glances. And by the time the pears had ripened, we had kissed behind the wooden doors.
We were three-quarters of the way through the apples and plums, a bumper crop, two precious weeks left. We hadnât talked about what would happen once those fourteen days ended. They stretched far off into the implausible month of October, a month that wouldnât exist until I flipped over the page of the calendar.
And then without warning, my father took over the runs.
He had been an admirer of the Doukhobors when they first bought the jam factory. They were clean, industrious, and their jam was delicious.
That was before the war. Suddenly he was saying what others in town said. They were different. They stuck together. They were allowed to buy a jam factory from an Englishman and run it as their own. They didnât have to enlist.
It didnât matter that a couple of their boys had left the fold and enlisted, too. Most of them hadnât. John hadnât, and that was all my father could see.
The cherries were in blossom again when I heard that John had married a Russian girl.
All winter I had written letters to him that had gone unanswered. Heâd had as much reading and writing as was needed to work on the communal land or in the jam factory, and I thought perhaps that was the problem, that he couldnât read the letters I sent, care-of the factory. I made them simpler each time, hoping one would eventually prompt a reply. I thought of saddling up old Ruby and heading to town along the wagon road, or finding my way across the arm of the lake and hopping the train into town. But why go to that effort if he hadnât? I would wait him out. So I was ashamed when I heard of his marriage, and then glad to read in the papers that the Doukhobors had sold the jam factory to build a new one over in Brilliant. Weâd ship the fruit by train, now. I told myself I might never have to see him again.
But I did. Even now I could see them as clearly as I had that day, it must have been the following year, from a doorway on Baker Street, red-striped awning shielding me from the sun, and them: John and his wife, a white-haired infant in her arms already. She wore a tightly-knotted kerchief and long skirts that swept the ground, like a woman from another century. And it struck me then that while other Doukhobor boys had broken with tradition and married girls from town,
angliki
like me, he had not, had never intended to, it seemed. Maybe I had known that all along. He had been allowed to drift from the fold for a summer, and then was lured back in with a bride.
When my three brothers returned from the war they assumed the rest of the fruit business. It happened gradually. One crisp day I looked up to see that cutting the grass, picking the last of the fruit, and finally pruning the trees had all been done without me. Well fine. I had been absorbed in my own plans to teach even before my fatherâs comment about finding a way to feed myself. I had decided that I would encourage learning and reading and the broadening of horizons, and embrace the very thing
Apricots were next, and the sight of them ripening made me restless. I wanted to pick them two full days before they were ready.
August had barely begun when war was declared and my brothers enlisted, even the twins, considered too young to handle the driving but suddenly old enough to fight. Pete and Pat, always said in that order so that our father could make a joke of saying pitty-pat, but with them gone he said it a lot less. I did feel for him, then. Even so, the absence of all of my brothers meant I could drive the fruit runs. I could also see John alone. During the next weeks, over the steaming kettles of apricots, raspberries and blueberries, we stole glances. And by the time the pears had ripened, we had kissed behind the wooden doors.
We were three-quarters of the way through the apples and plums, a bumper crop, two precious weeks left. We hadnât talked about what would happen once those fourteen days ended. They stretched far off into the implausible month of October, a month that wouldnât exist until I flipped over the page of the calendar.
And then without warning, my father took over the runs.
He had been an admirer of the Doukhobors when they first bought the jam factory. They were clean, industrious, and their jam was delicious.
That was before the war. Suddenly he was saying what others in town said. They were different. They stuck together. They were allowed to buy a jam factory from an Englishman and run it as their own. They didnât have to enlist.
It didnât matter that a couple of their boys had left the fold and enlisted, too. Most of them hadnât. John hadnât, and that was all my father could see.
The cherries were in blossom again when I heard that John had married a Russian girl.
All winter I had written letters to him that had gone unanswered. Heâd had as much reading and writing as was needed to work on the communal land or in the jam factory, and I thought perhaps that was the problem, that he couldnât read the letters I sent, care-of the factory. I made them simpler each time, hoping one would eventually prompt a reply. I thought of saddling up old Ruby and heading to town along the wagon road, or finding my way across the arm of the lake and hopping the train into town. But why go to that effort if he hadnât? I would wait him out. So I was ashamed when I heard of his marriage, and then glad to read in the papers that the Doukhobors had sold the jam factory to build a new one over in Brilliant. Weâd ship the fruit by train, now. I told myself I might never have to see him again.
But I did. Even now I could see them as clearly as I had that day, it must have been the following year, from a doorway on Baker Street, red-striped awning shielding me from the sun, and them: John and his wife, a white-haired infant in her arms already. She wore a tightly-knotted kerchief and long skirts that swept the ground, like a woman from another century. And it struck me then that while other Doukhobor boys had broken with tradition and married girls from town,
angliki
like me, he had not, had never intended to, it seemed. Maybe I had known that all along. He had been allowed to drift from the fold for a summer, and then was lured back in with a bride.
When my three brothers returned from the war they assumed the rest of the fruit business. It happened gradually. One crisp day I looked up to see that cutting the grass, picking the last of the fruit, and finally pruning the trees had all been done without me. Well fine. I had been absorbed in my own plans to teach even before my fatherâs comment about finding a way to feed myself. I had decided that I would encourage learning and reading and the broadening of horizons, and embrace the very thing
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