It’s citrus season, and the trees of my streets are heavy with the bright balls of fruit. My son sometimes picks me a lemon or two on his way home from school, and I help myself to the basket of limes that hang from the fence of a nearby house. The potted plant on my balcony fruited early this season, and for weeks I watched as the hundreds of small green cumquats slowly ripened. I finally picked them when they were fattened with juice and seeds and colour, the cat squatting on the ground to watch. When I dropped a cumquat she sniffed at the skin and turned away, as if sensing the sharpness of its flesh.
Since my daughter moved out several years ago, my household has shrunk. It is now only my son and me. And the cat. A scratchy, sullen creature who delights in ignoring us both unless we are sitting in the seat she believes is hers. My son has begun cooking for himself, and so I find my services in the kitchen required less often. Except for the yearly making of cumquat jam.
