When the grocer tells her the peaches have no smell, she doesn’t believe him.
Peaches always have a smell, she says, and, when the language barrier persists as wide and strong as oceans around this peninsular country, she lifts one up for him to inhale.
He smiles, shakes his head. No smell, he insists and indicates the price tag.
She realizes that to him, peaches only smell when they’ve gone rotten. He doesn’t equate them, as she does, to something resisted, then accepted and now, savored.
Peaches fruited were the late nights wandering by the lake when he’d been gone, dodging arrows of doubt, drinking moonfuls of what might be’s.
Peaches ripened were the first time she said she loved him, the collective melding and anticipation of the things to come.
Peaches harvested were the long, slow learnings, the deepenings, the ripenings and the fufillings.
Peaches pitted were the bitterness, the sideswiping left-handed punch to the kidney, sending them spinning, running ragged through unbloomed vinyards and Galecian mountains.
Peaches bruised were the winter of her discontent, her brokenness met with his gentleness.
Peaches tasted were the ache for a place and a people she couldn’t wrap her arms around yet, a man she couldn’t now imagine losing, and a God she didn’t understand.
It made sense that to the grocer, peaches smelled were rotten, a signal of their overripeness, over readiness to be tasted. But to her, peaches savored always equaled Persiad meteor showers and the last Indian summer weekend in November. Peaches swallowed were a Georgia that was real and true and hers.
And peaches inhaled were home.
A Reasonable Distance 