The Berry Pickers

by Amanda Peters

“No but. Just get back to work and be kind to Frankie. You never know when you might need kindness from people.”

I’ve always wondered at the secrets the dead take with them. Some are unintended secrets, things they never got around to saying, like “I’m sorry” or “The money is hidden in the shoebox at the back of the closet.” Some secrets are so dark that it’s best they remain buried.

“I think that we all do bad things, but that don’t always make us bad people.”

I don’t cry anymore for my parents. I miss them, yes, but I think that as the ones we love get older, we just start to separate from them, like oil from water, a line separating the living and the dying, the living carelessly gathering at the top.