In chapter 4, Phoebe's mother makes blackberry pie. She sees Sal staring at the blackberries and asks if she likes blackberries. Sal says that she likes blackberries "very much" but that she also has "some allergies." This is not true. Sal does not have any allergies, but she does not want to tell Phoebe's mother that the blackberries actually remind her of her own mother.

In chapter 6, we find out why blackberries remind Sal of her mother. We find out that Sal and her mother used to walk "around the rims of the fields and pastures, picking blackberries in the summer." Sal remembers that she was only allowed to pick blackberries from the middle parts of the vines. Her mother told her that the blackberries at the bottom of the vines were for the rabbits, and those at the top of the vines were for the birds. The blackberries in the middle of the vines, she said, were at "people-height" and were, therefore, for people.

Also in chapter 6, Sal remembers a specific incident related to blackberries. She remembers a morning when her mother filled two bowls with blackberries and put one bowl on the table for Sal's father and one bowl on the table for Sal. Sal's mother did this after Sal's father, the day before, had picked two flowers for her and Sal, leaving one in a juice glass for each.