Makin' Pies

There's this kid. He's one of the kids from the group home I work at. One night a couple of weeks ago all the other kids went out to a movie, or to friends, or whatever. He had to stay home because of bad behaviour, so I hung out with him at the house and we picked saskatoon berries in the back yard. The berries hung in juicy purple clumps and were so ripe that they fell into our palms with the lightest brush and stained our fingers purple. I've never seen them so round and fat before.

I couldn't reach the tops of the trees, so he grabbed the branches for me and held them while I picked. He held the branches and told me about how he used to go camping with his mom and brothers and sisters. About how his dad lifts weights. About how he's teaching his little sister to respect their baby sister. How he wishes he could go camping again.

When our bucket was full we went inside and I taught him how to make a pie. He did it all, step by step as I told him. And when I taught him how to pinch the top crust to the bottom one he spent half an hour pinching it just so, pricking the crust with the tines of the fork, sprinkling sugar to make it crunch. We baked it and it looked so pretty and he did such a good job that I took a picture.
"Smile," I said, but of course, he wanted to look tough. In oven mitts.

I sure like that kid.