as she downshifted and changed lanes.
“It’s one of the things I remember best about summers here. It was almost a ritual. On Friday we got the berries, either picking them ourselves or walking to that little market down on Haverly. The fruit was piled on round tables out front with big canvas umbrellas for shade— Is that place still there?” he interrupted himself to ask.
Rose nodded. “Umbrellas and all.”
He smiled, oddly pleased. “It was my job to wash the berries and pick off the stems, while she made the batter. I remember she had this special bowl, tan with two blue stripes. And she always wore the same apron,” he went on, gazing out at the sailboats on the bay, seeing instead the past as it unfolded inside him, one fragment of memory at a time.
“It was black, with bunches of blueberries and green leaves all over it. It matched the Saturday morning place mats.” He gave a short laugh. “I can still see them, with her white everyday china plates on top, and in the center of the table was this special pitcher for the syrup. Damn, I haven’t thought of any of this in years.”
He wasn’t quite sure why he was permitting himself to think about it now, much less share it with someone else. If Rose had spoken or pressed him in even the most innocent way, he would have shut down instantly. But she didn’t, and her easy, tranquil silence was difficult to resist.
“It was only as big as my hand,” he recalled, “and shaped like a bunch of grapes, with a stem for a handle. But for a kid, grapes looked enough like blueberries to add to the occasion. It was a great little pitcher.”
“Majolica,” she said quietly.
“Pardon me?”
“I know which pitcher you’re talking about. It’s Majolica, a type of very colorful ceramic with a special glaze.”
“Is it as overpriced as the Meissen stuff?”
“Not quite.”
“Good.” He turned to look out the window once more before adding, “Because one Saturday morning I dropped it and the handle broke.”
They passed meandering stone walls and wild roses and a field of grazing cows.
“I ran,” he said. “As soon as I saw that broken handle, I took off and ran all the way down to the water, to a little opening between two rocks where I knew no one else could fit. I didn’t wait around to hear her scream at me for being such a klutz.”
“It’s hard to imagine Devora screaming,” she observed, stopping the truck to toss a token into the toll basket at the head of the Newport Bridge.
“She didn’t. She simply followed me and stood at the edge of the rocks, her apron whipping in the breeze, and said, ‘Come along, Hollis. All this exercise has made me hungry, and I abhor cold, soggy pancakes.’”
“What did you do?”
“I went along, of course. This was my aunt Devora, remember.”
Rose laughed and nodded.
“When we got back to the house, the broken pitcher was on the counter. I took one look at it and started bawling, so hard I couldn’t even tell her I was sorry.” His mouth curved into a small smile. “Devora just wiped my face with her apron. ‘Oh, that,’ she said, waving it off as if it wasn’t the special Saturday morning pitcher I had broken. ‘I have some glue that will take care of that. Perhaps you can fix it for me after breakfast.’”
“Did you?”
He nodded. “But not very well, I’m afraid. It didn’t matter. The next week it was back on the table, and she never said another word about it. It was not the reaction I’d expected.”
They were driving through a neighborhood of large, older homes. Rose stopped at a crossroads to glance at the map she had prepared, then turned left.
“What did you expect?”
“For all hell to break loose. My mother was…” He hesitated. “I guess Devora put it most delicately. She used to say my mother was high-strung. That’s why I started coming to Wickford in the first place. To give Mom a break. And because Devora said Manhattan was no place for a rambunctious young boy to spend the summer.”
“Your family lived in the city?”
“Central Park West.”
She whistled softly. “Very Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Griffin.”
“Lifestyles of the Ruthless and Neurotic is more like it,” he retorted. “And with no fishing, no sand crabs, no blueberry pancakes on Saturday mornings. I liked Devora’s place a lot better.”
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