The house smells of strawberries. She’d hulled and halved them earlier, sweet and oozing, soft juice running and staining her fingers, tiny seeds sticking in her teeth. So much scent from something so small. The kitchen is saturated, her dress sodden with it. She’d dressed up to pick them. A long dress, floating sky blue, the colour fading like an old Polaroid. Her strawberry picking dress. Her grandchildren still smile at the sight of it, this dress that she only ever wears for strawberry picking like some kind of talisman, some long-ago part of some long-ago ritual. A dress made for dancing through straw-covered furrows, for picking two and eating one, for lips on fingers and over-ripe, mushy sunsets squashed in the palm. A dress for that moment of summer bursting open. Her body, ripening. Do you remember, Robert? You were so worried I’d stain it, but I never did.

The rocking chair creaks quietly in the draught. The knitted blanket slips from the polished back and ripples onto the seat. On the dresser, the decanter of whisky flares amber in the firelight before dying away. A brief lick of flame against the crystal. She always has an evening fire these days, no matter how warm it is outside. A primal instinct for safety when the darkness comes down like summer rain, softly at first and then a downpour. It brings his voice with it, vowels smooth and rounded as pebbles. It’s March, Jeannie. She can hear him smile, his smile that always carried the promise of a laugh. Why are you wearing that dress in March? Strawberry picking comes in June.

Oh love, she says aloud, there hasn’t been strawberry picking in June for years, don’t you remember? But the enveloping dusk dissolves her words like water dissolves salt. She places another log on the fire. Sharp, honey-coloured tongues grasp at it, curling around the small bulk, sucking and spitting at the grain. The flames salivate like a dog with a bone. She’d almost got a dog once, a long time ago, when she and the house were still uneasy with one another. Back then she’d never slept in such deep country, had never known that the softest of breezes could turn to water and lap at the walls, that a house could breathe around cracks and splintered edges and creaking plumbing. She’d never known that, when a sheep coughs into rustling darkness, it sounds human. But you loved it, didn’t you, Robert? It was who you were. And I grew to love it too, because of you.

No, you don’t remember about the strawberry picking. If you did you’d be here now. His voice is faint tonight, she isn’t going to see him. The air around the fire shifts, hot and flickering, going so far and no further. Beyond its reach is the vague kind of chill that, at first touch, doesn’t feel like a chill at all. Feet toasting, back seeping through with cold. Like one of the strawberries she’d hulled earlier, on the cusp of dissolving into sun-drenched pulp. He’s right, of course, strawberry picking should come in June. He will come in June instead. He will sit by the fire with a glass of the whisky, just as he always did, and ask why she isn’t wearing her strawberry picking dress and where all the children are, and she’ll remind him all over again that strawberry picking comes earlier now. April, March, sometimes even February. Whenever it’s been warm enough for long enough. What are you talking about, Jeannie? She can hear his gentle confusion, the tremor at the corners of his smile. Don’t you remember the strawberry fields in June?

I remember, love. The sounds of the village drifting over the fields, the hum of traffic from the road as the breeze turned. Skin, sweat-slicked and glowing. Laughter bubbling over the furrows and catching on the fuzz of the strawberry leaves. Cardboard baskets filling with fruit, too much fruit, a glut of it every year, the summer air swelling with it. Pies, jams, cakes. Bowls filled with cream. Her daughter, finally born on a day when the strawberries were splitting from so much swelling, says that the house always smells of strawberries now, that the season has moulded itself around the word home until no one can tell one from the other. So why aren’t you here, Robert? Does it matter that it’s only March? A flame hisses upwards, tiny flecks like blackened paper in its grasp, and the rocking chair settles back on its haunches. A brief, resinous flare of whisky burns her nostrils, and then dies.

It matters. Of course it matters, and she can’t be angry with him. Nothing is as it should be. The river, once thick and alive with rushes and marigolds and kingfishers, is now too stagnant and sleepy; it’s confused and terrified by the sudden onslaughts of rain that come when they’re least expected. She’s seen it, woken from its stupor, rushing from its banks like a frightened animal along any path it can find. Even the wind is unsettled, searching the house for somewhere to rest, fingers roving in bewilderment over the fields that don’t bloom like they used to. It doesn’t understand what’s happening to it, any more than Robert would understand why she’s been picking strawberries but there’s no birthday cake. Why haven’t you made Anna a cake, Jeannie? The concern weighs down the edges of his smile; he wonders if she’s ill. You always make our daughter a cake.

Oh love, she sighs, and wonders if she has the patience to go over it all again. Because it’s not her birthday, because things have changed. The hanging corners of the curtains shift, letting a fragment of light and heat escape the room and vanish into the thickening blackness beyond. A shiver breaks over her forearms that are held out to the fire. Reaching for something that isn’t there. The shiver splinters over her spine, penetrating deep into her flesh like a premonition of fever. Perhaps she is sickening for something. Our daughter. She rubs her bare arms, and prickles of skin fleck against her hands like strawberry seeds. Why do you still call her that, Robert? Why can’t you see things as they are?

She stands up from the sofa, a sudden movement that upsets the balance of air in the room. The rocking chair shudders, the whisky trembles in its crystal cage. The flames growl at the fireguard she puts up. They don’t like being contained, held back like a dog on a chain. They want to protect her, but they could just as easily turn on her when she isn’t looking. She’s had to scoop burning embers from the rug before, when she’s been too complacent, too forgetful of the fact that everything surrounding her is alive. So the fireguard goes up and she goes back to the kitchen, to the knife and bowl that are streaked and stained with the red of strawberries. If you want me to make a cake, I’ll make a cake. it doesn’t have to be Anna’s birthday. The scent of strawberries is overpowering in here. The walls seem to run with it, red streams trickling into pools of light and shadow, and her dress feels wet to the touch even though it’s clean. She fetches flour and butter and eggs and sugar, a clean bowl, a wooden spoon and whisk. There are no lemons. She hasn’t been able to buy lemons for months. Why no lemons, Jeannie? She can hear the puzzlement in his voice, whispering down the chimney and through the range with the wind. She can hear his worry that she’s forgotten to buy lemons. Our daughter’s favourite is lemon cake.

I know, love. Two sweet sponges sandwiched together with a slick tang of lemon curd, a cluster of mushed strawberries on the side of the plate. But I couldn’t get any lemons. Guilt threads across her throat like the weeds that have invaded the garden and that she can’t get rid of, a slowly-creeping mass that’s choking the soil. She’s let it go too long, despite offers of help, just like she’s let the gutters bloat with debris and the pointing on the gable end crumble under violent heat and violent rains. It’s not his fault. None of it’s his fault, not even calling Anna our daughter. But you never let me talk about it, did you, Robert? You never let me explain. Never let me say that it was once, just once, that I was lonely with you at the farm all day, that I should have regretted it and didn’t because it gave me Anna. She still has the dreams. Her mouth full of too many teeth, so thick that she can’t speak, until all at once they crumble into dust on her tongue and she wakes, sweating, with her hand cupping her mouth to catch the chalky ash. Did you know that secrets taste like bone, Robert? And now it’s too late, and I can’t even get lemons.

She’ll make a plain sponge instead, light and frothy with jam and cream, and there will still be strawberries on the side. Our daughter. You always loved her, didn’t you, Robert? Perhaps even more than I did. Was it because she wasn’t yours, were you clinging on to stop the ground shifting under your feet? She cracks the eggs sharply on the side of the bowl. Yolks drop and quiver like apricots on the branch; sugar and butter glisten in the wet. She begins to beat, and trails of bubbly egg white foam out across the bowl. Like sleet, she thinks, or frost, only there hasn’t been sleet or frost for years. Her grandchildren don’t know what they are. She’d shown them pictures, photographs of winters both glittering and dirty grey, and they’d smiled, said it looked like sugar. Our grandchildren don’t know what snow is, Robert. But that’s not his fault either, and she can’t be angry with him for pretending to forget. Sometimes she thinks it’s her fault, that if only she too could pretend to forget, if only she could do it for long enough that she actually did forget, if she could cling on instead of drowning, then everything would settle down. The wind would rest and the river would flow as it should do, and there would be snow in December and strawberry picking in June. And you’d be here, Robert. Why aren’t you here?

A chair creaks on the other side of the table, a slow wooden creak, and ripples of wind run like breath down the chimney. Anna will be on the phone soon, checking that she’s all right after the strawberry picking is over; Anna couldn’t make the journey home for it this year, not in March, not with the grandchildren. She’ll tell Anna about the cake and apologise that she hadn’t been able to buy lemons, but of course she’ll tell her daughter that she’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything was fine and is fine and will always be fine, because that’s what parents always say, isn’t it, Robert? Even when the very fabric of the world is splitting open. They always say everything is fine.

She’s beaten the cake too hard. It will be more dense that it should be, it won’t bubble up with air as it normally does, but she scrapes it into the two shallow cake tins anyway, and smoothes the top with the back of the spoon. There are flecks of pale, buttery mixture on her dress. She’ll have to take it off and wash it and hang it back in the wardrobe for next year, and when she takes it out—if she takes it out—the scent of strawberries will still cling to it like thin moss to a stone. If, Jeannie? She can hear the bewilderment in his voice, his smile fading to uncertainty. You always wear that dress for strawberry picking. You always wear it for me.

She opens the door of the range, and creaking heat washes over her arms. Her eyes and throat burn as she slides in the cake tins, one after the other; the salty burn of words that can’t find a form. He’s right, of course. She’s always worn it for him, because he loved to see her wearing it in the strawberry field in June, soft and bright as the summer day. He doesn’t see that the fabric’s faded, that each year it gets paler and paler, that it gathers and hangs on her body like crumpled skin. Do you still want me to, love? You’re never here to see it anymore. Do you really want me to carry on wearing it alone?

She asks the question to the hollowed air, and for the first time all evening the wind is quiet. The coolness of the kitchen runs through her like water. She’ll wear it next year, of course she will. She’ll wash it tomorrow. She’ll start making jam tomorrow too, just as she always does, even though there aren’t really enough strawberries this year. But the scent of them will bubble and thicken to something dark and crusted with sugar, just as it always does. Something that will still echo with June, while her strawberry picking dress flaps emptily on the line.

Elodie Barnes is a writer and editor. Her fiction is born at the edges of nature, memory, trauma and the body, and is published regularly in online and print journals including Gone Lawn, Splonk, Lost Balloon, and Sonder Lit. Her flash fiction is included in the Best Small Fictions anthology of 2022, and she is the winner of the 2023 Pigeon Review Flash Fiction competition. Find her online at elodierosebarnes.weebly.com.