“At the appointed hour, my husband and I gather around the stove to take the pie out of the oven. The crust is lightly browned, looking neither tough nor chewy. The thick purple berry juice bubbles around the edges – a good sign according to my pie man. We stand and gaze down at the thing in a moment of awe. My pie is done. My pie.

“Suddenly, I long for an inviting windowsill on which to let it cool. I long to shoo away mischievous neighborhood youths with my apron: ‘Now you boys get away from there. That pie’s not for you.’ I long to flaunt this pie before my friend who made the dare. I long for a church supper, a bake sale, a family dinner, so someone could ask what I brought and I could smugly say, ‘pie.’

“But there are none of these opportunities. There are only the two of us, and the two of us will sit down in the blue twilight of this coming summer evening, as couples have sat down to countless blue twilit Maine evenings for generations, and top off supper with blueberry pie. And the pie will be fine.” — ELIZABETH PEAVEY

Originally from “Maine & Me: 10 Years of Down East Adventures,” Down East Books, Camden. (c)2004 Elizabeth Peavey. Excerpt and photo from “A Gateless Garden: Quotes by Maine Women Writers,” edited by Liza Bakewell, photographed by Kerry Michaels, $24.95. This May, the book won the Maine Writers and Publishers Association award for Best Anthology of 2016.


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