Page 65 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

The documents cover my air mattress. Copies of everything. Copies of interview transcripts, copies of handwritten notes, copies of every report from every database my mother was entered into, copies of pictures taken throughout the years, copies of the medical examiner’s report, copies of copies of copies clipped together like a Russian nesting doll. Once I start, I cannot stop.

I find the original missing report. It was logged by a deputy whose name I don’t recognize, but his signature is alongside Josiah’s at the bottom of the paper. It reveals nothing new. My mother was last seen leaving Bible study. She arrived on foot. She was wearing a long blue dress with white polka dots, white kitten heels with a plastic ribbon on the toes, and a rose goldcrucifix. All of this I already know, but the three lines concluding the report, thoughtless data entry to the deputy who typed this up, send a chill down my spine.

LAST KNOWN CONTACT: THURSDAY, AUGUST 6TH, APPROX. 7:30PM

REPORT ENTERED: AUGUST 7TH, 5:48PM

REPORTING PARTY: GRACE BYRD

Grace.

CHAPTER

19

August 20th

1:14PM

GRACE WAITS FORme beneath the chokecherry tree on the lot with the burnt-down house. The branches sag with bunches of glossy purple fruit, bruises against the brilliant blue sky. My favorite thing about chokecherries is that there is no universal rule as to when they are ripe. It varies tree to tree and bush to bush. Some are ready to be picked as soon as they deepen from green to red, but others must blacken before they are ready to be eaten. It’s a prosaic mystery, but one I always found delight in.

My mother knew every chokecherry tree in Annesville, which ones could be harvested at red, purple, and black. It’s why her pie always tasted so heavenly. When she shared the recipe with Grace, she must have imparted her knowledge of the fruit too, and as I look at my sister, my stomach cramps with envy for the secret my mother entrusted her with.

Perhaps that’s what my mother thought about as she was dying.At least someone else knows about the chokecherry trees.Itwas her pearl of wisdom, the only thing she could pass down to her daughters.

“Is it ripe?”

Grace looks up from her phone and into the crown of the tree. Sunlight falls to her face in jagged golden pieces. “These ones are,” she says, taking a quick pull from her vape. “Big and purple, like they should be.”

I pluck a tangle of chokecherries from the tree. The bunch is round and thick like a Christmas ornament. When I bring the first berry to my lips, Grace shrieks and scrambles to her feet. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve only eaten a slice of toast today.”

She bats the chokecherries to the ground. Her face is stark white. “They have cyanide in them! They’ll kill you if you eat them raw!”

I can’t contain my laughter. “It’s just the pits, Grace. You can spit them out.”

“But …”

“That’s why Mom always made us pit them when she baked a pie.”

She shakes her head. “She told me you can’t eat them raw at all. If you did, they’d poison you and you would choke. That’s why they’re called chokecherries.”

I was sixteen. My mother was sober. Juice squirted into my eye while I was pitting the chokecherries, and as I flushed my eye in the kitchen sink, I started crying because I was sure I would go blind. “If the raw ones can kill me,” I said between sobs, “then I’m sure the juice will make me go blind.” She cupped her hands around my face and asked me to open my eyes. She said, “They won’t really kill you, Providence. I told you that when you were little so you wouldn’t choke on the pits.”

“So they’re not dangerous?”

“No.”

“But they’re called chokecherries.”

“That’s my favorite thing about them,” she said. “They sound like they’ll kill you, but they’re harmless.”

So, to dispel the myth for Grace now, I say the same thing: “They sound like they’ll kill you, but they’re harmless, Grace.” I try to channel my mother’s cadence—the fanciful rhythm to her words, her voice airy as if she had been relieved of a grave burden—but it falls flat.

Grace rolls her eyes. “What a stupid thing to lie about,” she says.

“She didn’t want us to choke on the pits.”

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