Blackberries
Image courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collections Everything is in shambles. I try to fit the rusty old key into the lock, and it sticks when I turn it. I worry the door won’t open. The key slips from my sweaty, shaking hand. Chips of brown paint and dusty strings of spiderweb cling to my blouse. A cold wave of panic sweeps over me, down my arms and up my throat and across my face. In spite of all this, I realize that if by chance I’m unable to unlock the door, I’ll simply drive back home and nothing will have happened. My panic subsides. I draw in a deep breath, dry my hands on my trousers, and brush the paint and spiderwebs from my sleeves. I calmly turn the key and watch the door open.
The scent of my grandparents hits me: lavender, pine, and nettles. Their summerhouse, damp, cool, and dark, is like an abandoned museum. I manage to pry open one of the crooked wooden window shutters despite its rusty hinges, and shafts of light lance the room. Thousands and thousands of dust motes awakened by my entrance dance in the air. Now to find the switch box and the water valve.
“How are you going to manage?” I can hear Gorazd say, with his eyebrow cocked. “You know you can’t,” he would add, or my father would. “You’re such a klutz,” Gorazd would say, as always. “I’d better come along,” my father would say. “You’ll never be able to do this on your own.”
A cold wave sweeps over me again. I can picture my grandmother when she came here alone, or alone with me, because I don’t really count. I can see her big behind sticking out from under the sink and then her ruddy, pleased face when she turns the tap and watches the water run, as if it were a miracle.
I kneel under the sink and gingerly place a clammy hand on the valve, but for the life of me I can’t remember which way to turn it. I close my eyes and picture a hand turning a faucet, then tentatively turn my own to the right and feel the valve give. I rise to my feet and twist the tap, watching it tremble and splutter before gushing out its first jet of water in three years. I sigh with relief as the water flows down the drain, but now I have to find the switch box. I can see my grandmother go to the cupboard by the window and grab a wooden rolling pin, then hobble toward the entrance. I do the same and see the switch box high above the door. Snap-snap-snap. I can feel each switch give as I push the end of the rolling pin against them. My hands are still sweaty as I flick on the living room light: it works. I flick on all the light switches: everything is working; nothing is amiss. But it can’t be, I say to myself. Nothing is ever right. That’s just how it looks.
I pull the sheets off the couches. The dance of the dust motes in the light becomes even livelier as I plop myself down, wondering what I should do next. Everything needs cleaning, and I should go up into the attic to make sure there isn’t something dead up there. I should get rid of all these spiderwebs. I should replace the sheets with the ones I brought from home. God knows, the clothes in the closets must be rotting with mold.
“It’s an absolute mess there.” My mother’s voice flows through me. “It’s unfit to live in,” she says, reluctantly handing me the key to the house. My father is supposed to give it to me, but he’s angry I’m going. He and Mila are reading a picture book in the backyard, his way of showing me that he’s a better parent than I am.
“Everything is falling apart,” my mother adds, even though the key is in my hand. They are well aware
