The Berry Pickers

As Norma ages, her mother’s headaches, like Norma’s dreams, grow rarer. They return the year that Norma leaves for college in Boston. Norma enjoys spending time with her friend Janet, but often escapes into books. Reading is her favorite activity, offering distraction from her overbearing mother and the guilt she feels for worrying her. Many of her classmates are preparing to get married or to begin working for their fathers, and Norma cannot imagine the confines of either. Once she leaves, she and Janet lose touch until Norma drops her mother off at an assisted living facility.

Aunt June lives in Boston and promises to show Norma around. Norma wanted to be a writer but couldn’t find her voice: She resolves to teach instead. While exploring, they see a group of Indigenous protesters in a park, and Norma is curious about the protest. June encourages her to ask about it, but one of the protesters screams out “Ruthie!”; June drags her away. Norma is confused, but June seems upset. June brushes it off, but Norma can’t forget.

They stop in an Irish bar, and Norma mentions the incident again. The bartender makes disparaging comments about Indigenous people, and she and June drink too much whiskey. Norma tells June that the incident is stranger in light of her imaginary childhood friend, Ruthie. June dismisses it as coincidence and makes Norma promise that she will never tell her mother about their experience.

Norma meets and falls in love with Mark, who works in the accounting department of a Boston law firm. Mark helps her to feel comfortable socializing and enjoying the city like the other college students do. When she graduates, she and Mark are engaged. June and her parents approve of the match. Norma graduates with a teaching degree; she feels happy and accomplished.

Joe’s condition continues to deteriorate, and the pain medication takes away his ability to walk. His mother and Mae take care of him, but he tries not to be a burden by staying in bed. His daughter Leah comes to see him. He loves her, but she does not call him “Dad.” He was largely absent during her childhood, and he accepts his smaller role in her life. He asks her to pull a small pair of boots and a doll out of his closet, telling her about Ruthie. He still hopes that she is alive. He tells Leah that his brother Ben thought that he saw Ruthie in Boston, but she was rushed away before he could speak with her.

After losing both Ruthie and Charlie in Maine, the family doesn’t return. Mr. Ellis writes, but Joe’s mother argues that those fields took two of her children. Joe, Mae, and Ben all struggle. Mae moves away but loves parties. Neither she nor Joe can find love, and they feel they are cursed. Ben joins an Indigenous protest movement in Boston. He visits and tells his family that he saw Ruthie walking with a white woman. Ruthie looked just like their mother. The family is excited, but Joe is angry. He doesn’t want Ben to stir up old memories, and he is not convinced it was Ruthie. He loses his temper, and his mother orders him to leave the table. Angrily, he rushes off and is hit by a truck. His injuries are severe and his recovery is lengthy. The man who’d hit him came to the hospital and offered him a job. Ben chose to stay home and care for his brother. Joe recalls asking Ben if he was sure that he’d seen Ruthie, and because Ben was so certain, the two decided to periodically make trips to Boston to look for her. They agree to keep their quest from their mother so as not to get her hopes up or cause her more pain.

Norma and Mark marry, and although they are happy during these early years, she thinks about the ways they drifted apart. Shortly after they married, Norma got a job near Augusta, and they moved back to Maine. Her mother was more involved with her church and pressures Norma, too. Norma is finally able to provide her mother with a reason not to: She is pregnant. Her mother seems shocked but assures her that she is happy. Norma is unconvinced.

Norma’s pregnancy proceeds as normal, but at 34 weeks, she loses the baby. The entire experience is a blur, from the initial appointment which Mark declined to attend, to the subsequent trips to the hospital, the news that the fetus is not “viable,” and the procedure to evacuate her uterus. She does not want to see her deceased daughter.

After they lose the baby, Mark and Norma’s grief separates them. Norma begins to think again about the dreams she had as a child. She is given the rest of the year off of work and spends her time mostly alone. After a short stay with their parents, Mark suggests a trip to Nova Scotia. They are excited and happy for the first time in a while.

On the trip, Norma sees a happy couple with a baby and begins to cry. Although he is sympathetic at first, Mark jokes about it, and Norma is incensed that he asked her if she plans to cry every time she sees an infant. They argue. She is mistaken for an Indigenous woman, and Mark points out how darkly complexioned she is. She loves Nova Scotia and feels so at home there that Mark jokes that she must have lived there “in a past life” (149). The two drink, dance, and start to feel happy, but Norma confides in Mark that she does not want to try to have another child. She explains that she’d lived her entire life with the ghosts of dead children. He is angry, telling her that it is not just her decision to make, that their plan had been to have children. Norma says, “Plans change.”