The heat hovered still and quiet, drowning the town's inhabitants in a haze of grogginess. The cicadas were the only living creatures that had the energy to create any sound or movement. Their wings beat in haphazard movements against each other, and if you closed your eyes, laying under the willow tree by the brown river, you could almost mistake them for frogs. That is, if you were city-dweller.
Summers were always the time to go blackberry picking. Every time we went berry-picking, I wore my white shorts with big, lime-green polka dots. You won't catch me dead wearing those damn shorts with my damn pink shirt with a white, lacey bunny tucked into them now. But when you were little, you didn't really give a damn because no one else cared either. As long as you weren't cruising around in pure, sweat-sheened skin, you didn't care--even though you threw a fuss every seasonal wardrobe change. I was one of those kids. First day wearing shorts after a long winter of long pants, and I felt alien to myself, the way animals do when they look in the mirror. They begin feeling self-conscious, nervous, and threatened. So they hiss and spit and wait to attack, but the foe reacted exactly the same way. Every time.
We lived in the city. They called us the 'CDs', even though we visited Grandma every summer, from late June to early August. Since I could remember, we had gone to Grandma's place every summer. Those were the good years. Those were the years where blackberries were abundant and sweet, where we ran around staining our clothes with sticky sweet blackberry juice and licking them off our arms. Those were the years where fighting was off-limits out of the city, where every face in our photos was plastered with blackberry smiles.
Grandma's house lay hidden behind a thicket of empty blackberry bushes. It's been years since we've come to visit. After the divorce, no one wanted to come to a place that was a reminder of times that allowed smiles to grace our faces. It wasn't much of a secret either. One of the downsides to being so attached to a small town is that everyone knows you. Everyone knows your business. Especially business that sets blaze to shame and embarrassment. It's a source of entertainment for human beings. And small town dwellers live and breathe in the stuff.
After Grandma died, the house was left to anyone in the family who had the need for it. No one did. Reminders of happy times are painful. Especially when thinking back on them when unhappiness permeates the spirit of the house you reside in. It's a heavy stink. You keep scratching at it, but it won't go away. It seeps into the deep, dark grooves beneath your eyes, into your limp hair, and into the weaves of your mismatched pantsuit.
My ex-husband hated this house. He visited once, after the wedding was held here, and then refused to visit the house again. I'd bring the kids here in the summers, the way Mom and Dad did, and they loved it. You should have seen them, smiles sticky with innocence and naivety. Those were the good old days. Had I had grandchildren, I'd reminisce about those times until they'd start mouthing it behind my back.
The blackberry bushes are overgrown, thorny, and empty, even though it's height of blackberry season. This sets the mood of my visit: empty, foreign, and out of place. I could hear whispers from the older generation behind my back, remember her? She's back. How shameful. How could she show her face after what's happened? Do you remember what happened? Not really, didn't they get divorced? Shameful! The younger generation these days don't know how to appreciate a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and food on the table.
No one bothers to remember why the divorce happened.
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