A Bag of Raspberries

I brought up a bag of raspberries from the freezer.

A used ziplock smeared with crushed crimson, wrapped inside an old McGavin’s bread bag, the colours half rubbed off.

At the top of the stairs I stopped, and with it iced my heart, gasped for a breath, reached out to the wall.

And then I continued into the kitchen, smiling and calling out, “Raspberries for the tapioca!” Cheers at this.

I brought up a bag of raspberries from the freezer.

Raspberries she had picked in the sun, white spiders sneaking out on the stems, tiny thorns under her nails.

Raspberries she had singly washed in ice water, picking them gently to drip in the colander before being bagged and frozen beside the beans or peas or crabapples.

They had to be eaten sometime.

I brought up a bag of raspberries from the freezer.

Almost freezerburnt, contoured to match the shapes of other garden produce. Smashed beyond repair. Coated with layers of pinked ice.

I could boil them with sugar and blanket them over the balls of tapioca. It would be fine for dessert. No one would know they were hers, from then.

Dessert was inhaled, just clink clink of stainless steel on stoneware. There was hardly a trace left to tell.

I brought up a bag of raspberries from the freezer.

Raspberries she’d brought over when they sold the house and she’d defrosted the enormous freezer. “Take these, please, so I don’t have to throw them out.”

They were crushed and nearly freezer burnt, red-stains like pressed blood, given when that part of her died.

I bent my head over dessert, so the tears could be stayed, and moved spoon to stoneware to mouth.