Peaches

My lover suffered from an addiction to peaches.

She had never tasted the fruit until she was twenty-seven years old.  Her first bite brought tears to her eyes.  She ate it slowly over an hour so.  After that, it was a slew of strange events that grew exponentially tragic over the months that followed.  She didn’t care much for the paraphernalia or the color, just the sweet fruit itself.  She liked to chew them with her eyes closed.

Over the course of a week, she had eaten nothing but peaches, even locking herself in the bathroom at work to get her fix.  She constantly sunk her teeth into the fruit at every waking moment.  I saw her face light up in that subtle way.  She knew she had developed a strange habit.  She never talked about it, just smiled.  She sought diversity in substance and switched to juice for a while, but it didn’t compare to the soft texture she so adamantly craved.

She began to eat more.  There were peaches under our bed.

I can’t tell you how many I stepped on and how many times we screamed at each other.  She lost weight and her color.  She wouldn’t tell her parents.  We had calm, fireside discussions.  She would dismiss me silently.

There were peaches in our shower.

She used my money for her peaches, and even bought a peach tree that she planted by our kitchen window.  It grew quickly and the branches squeezed inside. The smell was faint, and it wafted in over the sink.  I grew to despise it.  I told her to get hold of herself, but she only stared back at me with green eyes from behind her peach.  I ate pork chops, green beans, mashed potatoes, and prime rib.  She ate peaches.  I wished she would choke.

There were a few days when we wouldn’t speak.  She would sit outside under her tree, and I would watch television.  She would climb into the bed at dawn and turn away.

She was rotting.

She forgot my birthday.

I skipped work and cut away every branch that dangled into our kitchen.  I bagged every peach and drove downtown.  I watched a thousand peaches bob in the river.  She never said a word to me.

I was rotting.  I drove down to the beach for a few days, drinking beer in a lawn chair and watching the women.  I knew I had to help her.  It would help me to help her.

I drove home determined to get her back and the peaches out.  Maybe she could just cut back.

When I found her, she was swinging idly from the lowest branch of the tree, the television cord around her neck.

No one knew but me.