Summary

The short story “The Jam Maker” by Huma Qureshi begins with the adult narrator looking back on her father’s death which happened when she was a child. She says that the summer when her father died was bright and sunny, unlike the summer before that which was rainy. The narrator recalls that, on the day her father died, he and the narrator had gone to pick a lot of strawberries.

Then, the father was called to a patient’s house and the mother started to make British strawberry jam, even though she did not like it. The narrator’s father died that very same day in a car accident. 

The narrator recalls that she and her mother made jam together, and it was one of the few instances when her mother was friendly to her. The narrator also reveals that she is now a jam maker. People who come to her shop are surprised to hear that she has learned to make jam from her Indian mother.

Then the narrator looks back on the relationship between her parents, which was often ...