The Berry Pickers

Content Warning: The source text contains descriptions of violence, domestic violence, racism, substance use disorder, miscarriage, and outdated terminology for Indigenous and First Nations peoples.

Norma has dreams in which she can smell a campfire and cooking potatoes, and she sees shadowy figures, including a woman whom she is sure is her mother, but who does not resemble her own mother, Lenore. The sights, sounds, and smells in these dreams are profoundly evocative, but as a child she struggles to understand their meaning. She wakes from them sobbing, and her grief is so immense that her mother and Aunt June arrange for her to speak with a therapist. She draws images from these dreams in the journals provided to her by the therapist, and there too she finds herself drawn to shapes, forms, and pictures that seem so familiar, but yet so strange. Although the dreams fade as Norma ages, they return at various points in her life, and there are times when she thinks, even during waking moments, that she can smell smoke from a campfire and potatoes cooking.

When she finally meets her mother, she realizes that these were not dreams, but memories. Stunned, she tells her mother: “I thought I’d made it all up, that you were a dream” (286).