They went to the Strawberry Days Parade in the heat of mid-July, with sticky sweat and sticky jams and sticky lemonade that Daniel bought for the whole family. It was a summer family tradition just starting to take root for them: his daughter, Esther, and a very pregnant wife Rachel, whose face said let’s stay a little while longer and whose hand, wrapped tightly around her waist, said can we please leave soon. She was wearing overalls that still barely fit her, but not for much longer. Her hand went to their daughter once she was sure he had seen her gesture. 

It was “hotter than the devil’s bee-hind,” Daniel’s dad had snarled earlier when they all met up to get blueberry pancakes, which looked like bruises. They sat under a musty tent where the popping and hissing of the skillet dulled their quietness, but not enough. The distant chatter of other families, and the infrequent whispers of wind across the fields punctuated their buckets-of-sweat breakfast. Daniel’s mom elbowed his dad in the side for his remark, and they left right after they finished eating, not saying a word except to ask Esther how swimming lessons were going. It was nice for them to have a buffer.

The fair reached across a long grey asphalt road and into a sprawling park with hills of day-tents set up for the many fair booths. The ground was littered with hay and strawberry stems and the air smelled like dust and manure. 

As they walked, Esther jumped across the long wide cracks in the pavement and dragged her mom forward in determined stomps. Crates and crates filled with berries stretched out in front of them, sold whole, chopped, frozen, jammed, jellied, baked, dried, pickled, but all berries. 

“If you’re gonna call the damned thing Strawberry Days ya can’t have blackberries. And what the hell is a boysenberry,” Daniel muttered to himself. 
Rachel looked at him sadly and mouthed “I’m sorry,” as Esther saw a sheep in the petting zoo and ran across the wide and open park. 

Rachel bought a cardboard basket of fresh boysenberries to try, and Daniel took the stiff quilt from under his armpit to spread across the grass for her. He looked out, scanning the field for Esther’s bouncing curls. As he helped Rachel lower down slowly to the ground, she gripped her belly again and huffed. 

Rachel retrieved a half-crumpled water bottle from her purse and drizzled its remainder across the deep red berries, bringing one to her lips. 

“Sour,” she laughed, crinkling her nose and squinting. “You’re gonna have to lighten up,” she nudged him after a moment, “big grump.” 

He was sweating through his shirt now, baking under the stagnant sun, but glad to be sitting down, and he reached over to pluck a berry from the heap in her hands. It tasted bitter and he wished Rachel had saved some of the water so he could rinse the taste. He nodded.

“Don’t be sad, dad.” Esther walked up to him and stuck out her arm to give him a pinwheel she’d gotten from the petting zoo. It had different farm animals on the different folds of glossy plastic. 

He leaned forward and blew hard to make the animals run, the plastic rustling and whirring against itself. 

Esther squealed in delight, looking hard at her dad to follow suit.

They bought peach shakes for the ride home and Esther fell asleep with her cheek against the seatbelt, her half-eaten cup dripping onto the grey, dusty carpet. 

There’d been a long line for the shakes, but his mom insisted that they had to try them. 

“Esther will just love it,” she’d said, and she was right, she’d begged for the largest size because grandma told her it would be worth it.

After carrying Esther off to bed, still fast asleep from the car ride, Daniel made his way to the back porch while Rachel tucked her in fully. He could hear the fair dragging into the night even from home, fireworks popping to punctuate the crickets and mosquitoes that had begun to swarm. He sat down on the back steps anyways, a long and low grunt escaping from him as he leaned onto the cooling blue cement. He stared out at their small backyard: the little trampoline he’d given Esther for her birthday which rose a timid expression in Rachel, the thick stripped-wood picket fence which Daniel kept promising to repair, the tufts of crabgrass and the dandelions that he kept for Esther for when they’d turn into wishes, the great big oak tree that hung overhead, littering down acorns in autumn. It was the real reason they had bought the house: as he toured it with Rachel, then only just pregnant with Esther, both were quiet, feigning contemplation when they both knew their answer, but they stepped outside to ‘talk it over’ away from the realtor, and there was the tree. Rachel plopped down under its shade, a cool spring breeze meeting them, and she was hooked. He went inside and made an offer.

It was as good a house as any, and they didn’t have time to wait for the perfect everything. He would have done anything for her then, still chubby faced with baby fat. When she gave him the stick that had told her she was pregnant he didn’t know how she wanted him to respond. Her face told him nothing about how she felt or how he should feel, and so he waited. He was still waiting, six years on.

The patio door squeaked and slammed behind him, and an arm stuck out a glass of lemonade. He took the glass without looking behind, and she sighed heavily onto the creaking wooden porch swing set. It’d been a housewarming gift from her parents, already sagging and dull when they moved it to their new patio. It was so sun bleached it looked as if it’d dissipate into dust under her weight. 

They sat with the sound of the creaking bench and distant firecrackers as the shadows got taller and bluer. She left after a while but came back with a blanket shawled across her.

“You know,” she said looking out at that great big oak tree and taking in a shaky inhale, “you’re gonna have to forgive me sometime for being pregnant.” 
He sipped his lemonade instead of answering. It’d grown warm and tasted like piss. He wanted to tell her to get over herself but didn’t. 

He couldn’t move. 

The crickets had gotten so loud in his ear that he didn’t notice when she went inside again. 

He knew she was right; about the thing she didn’t say – that they were stuck, and it was better to just get on with it. 

He looked at the big, thick tree. It’d had its chance to move. When it was younger, a sapling, before rings of itself encased it, it could’ve moved, or been moved, but it was too late. The roots probably ran down deep below where their house sat, cradling them, older than the house, older now than any of the houses, he thought. 

It was too late, and now they had to make the most of it. 

He looked at the peeling bark and willed himself to put away that spite that made him hate the too-tight overalls and the boysenberries and the stained carpet, and even her freckled shoulder that he’d kissed so tenderly before. The spite that made him even resent Esther for being six years old and not knowing to be sorry. 

He realized he was crying, and that it had gotten so late now that the moths were circling above him in the porch light. He folded up that rage, tucked it away, and went inside.

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Bailey Willes is a Salt Lake City based writer and poet. She recently completed her Art History undergraduate degree from Westminster College with an English minor. She was selected by Carolyn Forché for the 2022 Westminster Student Poetry Contest for her poem “Love in a Mist” featured in ellipsis… literature & art journal and on Poets.org for the 2022 Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize. Her poem “Shangri-Lane” is published in Violet Indigo Blue, Etc.’s special extended folio Garden Party. Her poetry and artwork have also been featured in Pencilings Literary Magazine, and her artwork has been shown and awarded at Springville Museum of Art.

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