Mennonites Don't Dance (17 page)

Hayley groaned. “Does she expect me to help?”

“I think so. I mean I think she wants us both to.” Joely felt an old coal start to burn in her chest and swallowed hard to put it out.

“God, why does all the work have to be done in the hottest week of the whole year? It'll be like the inside of a dragon's mouth in that kitchen when Mom gets all her stockpots boiling.” Hayley patted her legs dry with a towel and leaned close to the mirror to examine her face, where a new pimple was threatening under the surface. “Next week will be even worse, you know. She'll want us to pluck chickens. I won't be able to get the smell of scalded feathers out of my hair for days. Oh, well. At least I get to go back to class. Too bad you're stuck here.”

“It's okay. You'll be home for Christmas and I'm coming to stay with you for spring break, remember?” Joely was already looking forward to the trip, even though it was eight months away. She was nervous about it though, worried she'd just be a farm bumpkin among all of her sister's sophisticated college friends.

“I know.” Hayley yawned, still waking up. “I can't wait for you to meet everyone. I keep telling them what a fantastic little sister I have.”

Joely's earlier irritation suddenly lifted like a bit of weather.

“Tell Mom I'll be down in a bit, okay.” Hayley shrugged off her top and stepped out of her boxers and into the shower, yelping at the blast of cold well-water.

Meanwhile, Joely changed into frumpy denim cut-offs that made her legs look shorter and wider, and a faded yellow T-shirt with stains on it from last year's jam. She paused at the top of the stairs and closed her eyes in quick prayer for whatever it was God thought she needed, and went downstairs.

“Hayley said she'd help with the jam.” Joely brightened the tone of her voice as she entered the kitchen, unsure whether she was telling a lie.

“Good, then,” her mother said, her voice flat. She turned and pressed the small of her back against the kitchen counter while she finished eating a Saltine spread with jalapeno jelly. She held out a second cracker to Joely, who wrinkled her nose.

“I don't know how you can eat that,” Joely said, scowling at the quivering green glob on the cracker.

“I suppose it's an acquired taste. I didn't always like it,” her mother said, eating the cracker in two bites before using her apron to wipe jelly from between her fingers. Her mother had gained weight in the last year. She'd always been somewhat plump, but even with ten new pounds, she still looked underfed. If anything, she appeared sterner. But as Joely watched, her mother's expression began to loosen a little. The furrows between her eyebrows eased. Her shoulders rounded. “The three of us haven't spent enough time together this summer, have we? I don't suppose I'll know what to do if you run off to college, too.”

“I haven't decided anything yet.” It was the truth. Unlike Hayley, she wanted to stay on the farm, maybe marry someone who'd buy it from her father some day, the way her father had bought it from her grandparents. Still, she wished there could be more to that kind of life than she'd already seen. More than just work and more work. “Besides, that's a long way off still. Two years, almost. And anyway, with all of us working on the jam today, maybe later we'll have time to go into town together.”

“We'll see,” her mother said, becoming absent again at the sound of lids snapping down as the last of the hot jam jars cooled and sealed. It was important, because anything that didn't seal would have to go into the fridge to use right away, and there'd be less for winter.

“I'll go start sorting berries. They're really good this year. Shouldn't be too many bad ones.” Joely turned to leave. Before she could go, her mother stopped her.

“Joely,” she said. “I'm sorry. It's just a busy time. Here, I think I have something for you.” She opened the fridge and reached to very back of the bottom shelf, behind jars of homemade antipasto, garlic and pepper jellies, marmalade and lime pickle. Un-Mennonite things that didn't fit with the farmer's sausages, homemade noodles and canned chicken that occupied the other shelves. “I always keep something tucked away for days like this.” When she stood up, she handed Joely a Snickers bar. “I know they're your favourite, too. We both like nuts, don't we? Now quick, take it to the summer kitchen with you before your sister sees it. I only have the one.”

“Thanks, Mom.” She gave her a quick hug before slipping away.

Outside, as she peeled back the candy wrapper, she turned to look back at the house, the kitchen window where her mother dipped a small scoop into a box of powdered dish soap that she kept on the sill. It was hard to tell through the warp of old window glass, but to Joely it looked as though her mother was singing.

In the half hour since Joely had last been outside, the heat had intensified and hot breaths of wind flicked at the dust. Joely could feel the beginning of a heat rash pricking her skin and knew it would turn her chest a bright shade of plum. The rash would still be there on Sunday, when she'd planned to wear a floral-print dress that Hayley had given her from her wardrobe. Now she'd have to go to church in her bubblegum-pink blouse that buttoned up all the way to a frilly collar she hated. The blouse was a hand-me-down from a cousin and Joely hadn't been able to grow out of it fast enough. It made her feel like a granny, but at least it would hide the rash.

By the time her mother and Hayley came into the summer kitchen, Joely had sorted through the first three pails of berries. Hayley made a face in the direction of the radio their mother had left playing.

“Change it to whatever you want,” their mother said, her mouth withering to a thin line.

“I'll just turn it off,” Joely said, knowing that her sister's choice of music would just end up annoying their mother. Hayley would use the term ‘lateral move', one of the phrases she had picked up at school and added confidently to her vocabulary. Joely wanted to try out the phrase now, but the words felt clumsy in her mouth.

“How long is this going to take?” Hayley crossed her arms and looked around the summer kitchen, seeming to realize for the first time just how much work there was to be done. “The jars aren't even sterilized yet.”

Their mother upended a pail of berries into a stock pot. “Well, if I'd had someone to help me this morning — ”

“I'm not going to college to learn how to be a farmer's wife,” Hayley said, reaching behind her waist to tie apron strings into a sloppy bow. “In fact, my sociology professor, Judy, says there's no need for a woman in our society to get married at all.”

“Tell me that next time you fall in love with some boy,” their mother said. But when Joely looked over at her mother, who was stifling a laugh, she knew they were both thinking of her sister's many schoolgirl crushes. The joke was short-lived.

“Oh, Mother. Really. I'm just saying — ”

“I know what you're saying. I didn't marry your father because I had no other choice, you know. And you can thank me that I did or you wouldn't be here today to make sure you don't repeat all my old-fashioned mistakes.”

“That's not what I meant. I just want to be sure I know why I make my decisions, so they're not based on what society says I should do. And besides, I'm not interested in boys anymore. I'm in college now. They're young men.”

Their mother laughed, a sound as dry as paper being crumpled. “Well, let me know if you find one with your modern sensibilities. I can use the money. I've been saving for your wedding to redo the kitchen. I've been thinking it would be nice to paint it peach and put in an island. Maybe even another window so I can get some morning sunlight. What do you think?”

Joely snorted and Hayley, who had been glue-sticking pictures of extravagant gowns and cakes into a scrapbook since she was twelve years old, said, “Fine with me.”

They all knew it was a bluff. The wedding fund was sacred to their mother. The last thing she'd spend it on was something for herself. Not when she was known for economizing by filling cracks in the walls with gobs of toothpaste. “It's a trick I learned from your grandmother,” she'd say. “Sometimes she had the nuttiest ideas, but they worked.” Lately, toothpasting over cracks had become an everyday thing.

“A new kitchen sounds nice,” Joely said, playing dumb while getting in a poke at both her mother and sister. When neither replied, she scraped a mound of spoiled berries into a slop pail for the pigs and moved onto the cherries.

The argument fizzled and they turned mutely to sorting and pitting, mashing and macerating, cooking and gelling. They ladled molten jam into hot jars, and loaded jars packed with whole berries into giant pots of water, separating them with old towels to keep them from shivering against each other as the water boiled. Steam filled the summer kitchen and beads of water ran down the windows. When they were finished, their palms were stained with red juice, like the hands of children painting a picture.

“I can't believe we have to do this every year,” Hayley groaned once the last jar was wiped and set in a row. “They have jam at the grocery store, you know.” Joely knew Hayley wasn't serious. Hayley loved homemade jam, but loved it more when someone else did the work.

“Well, at least it's done for another summer,” their mother said. She looked satisfied at being able to quantify their work as she counted the jars and added them to her inventory.

“These ones are for me,” Hayley said and quickly claimed six raspberry-filled jars.

“You can take three. And two of everything else.”

“Fine,” Hayley said, although she returned only two of the raspberry.

“Are we going to do the grapes today, too?” Joely was tired and sticky from the work they'd already done, yet reluctant for them all to go their separate ways. Tension had defined the weeks that Hayley had been home, but Joely wasn't willing to let it ruin their whole summer.

“The grapes could wait another day, but it would be better to get to them now,” their mother said. She looked at Joely, then Hayley, over juice-spattered glasses that had slid down her nose to rest on its tip. She was quiet for a moment as she flapped the hem of her dress to stir up a breeze against her legs. “But I suppose you girls have something better to do.”

“I'm not sure what I have planned,” Hayley said.

Joely knew what Hayley was thinking — that even if they didn't make the jelly, there was always the possibility their mother would want to try out one of her crazy ideas. Like the year she decided to make chutney out of a bargain box of mangoes she brought home. Or when there were leftover peaches and too many tomatoes in the garden, and she made Hayley and Joely spend a whole day helping to make two kinds of salsa. Or the jalapeno jelly that was last year's experiment, and no one but their mother liked.

“Just wait here a minute until you see what I have,” their mother said, lifting the door to the summer kitchen's root cellar and disappearing down under the floor.

“Oh, Mom. Not marmalade,” Hayley said when a galvanized milk bucket filled with oranges and lemons was lifted up. “Nobody even likes it.”

“Well, I like it. And your father likes it.” Their mother was still half buried in the cellar. “If you don't, then go do something else.”

“I can stay,” Joely said as her mother climbed out and lowered the trap door. She wished she could be more like Hayley who did as she pleased and was already half way to the house. “I've gotten used to the marmalade. I guess maybe it's an acquired taste.”

“Yes, well, we're not making marmalade.”

“But you told Hayley.” Joely pinched her eyebrows together but quickly smoothed them out when she reminded herself what long-term use of a scowl had done to her mother's face.

“Hayley assumed. It doesn't matter, though. She'll be ready another time for what I have in mind. Come on down here with me, I have something to show you.”

Confused, Joely followed her mother into the root cellar where it was cool and pleasantly dry, a comfortable contrast to the steam upstairs.

Even though they were underground and the cellar wasn't more than eight feet along each wall, Joely felt able to breathe deeply for the first time since they'd started boiling jam.

Around the walls of the cellar were wooden crates that contained what remained of last year's potatoes and a few bearded carrots, no longer good for anything but the pigs.

“Do you remember your grandmother very much?” her mother said.

Joely hesitated, not sure what her grandmother had to do with anything in the root cellar.

“I remember her a little. She was always busy.” She thought for a moment. “But I remember that she laughed a lot, too.”

“She did, didn't she?” Her mother grew silent, smiling to herself while Joely waited for her to get to her point. Finally, she said, “The busyness wasn't always just with dishes or dusting. What I remember is that she was always quick to finish her work so she could do things she liked. I've been thinking of her lately. She kept secrets, you know. Sometimes she'd share them with me so I'd know something my brothers didn't.”