Hello Readers! Long time, no… umm… reading? My life has been a confusing mess for the past two months and creating coherent, rational sentences proved far too difficult. So, instead of burdening you with my random, toxic thoughts, I took a break. And although I’m slowly coming out of my haze, I still don’t know how to put my current emotions into words.

So, I’ve decided to share a short story with you. It isn’t polished yet, but I’m proud of it because it isn’t like anything I’ve ever written before. Also, it’s complete fiction, which I generally don’t write. My friend gave me the challenge of writing a story about a pear, and this is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it!

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Heirloom

                Pears have always been my favorite fruit. The first time Joel and I hung out, he teased me mercilessly, saying things like, “When in the history of fruitdom has someone named pears as their favorite fruit?!” and “Are you sure you’re a chef? Have you even tasted cherries or perfectly ripe pineapple?” That night, we spent hours passionately debating and laughing hysterically about the validity of my love for pears. It isn’t crazy to say that the little pome played a significant role in the two of us falling in love. So, every year, I made sure to create some crazy pear-centered masterpiece for his birthday. After two years of dating and six years of marriage, I’m pretty sure pears had become his favorite fruit as well. But, of course, he would never admit that to me… my God, I loved him.

                Bubbles were long gone, and water had cooled to lukewarm, yet I couldn’t pull myself from the tub. I’d tried a few times but knew that as soon as I lifted these 200 plus pounds from welcome weightlessness, the gravity of reality would pull harder on my mind than my body. I ran my fingers over the raised scar on my wrist, made a little less dramatic by the pruning of my fingers. We’d kept it bandaged so long that it still felt new and foreign, even though it happened weeks ago. The therapist, Jackson, keeps telling me that I must stop saying “it happened” and take accountability for my actions. But I was there, and I swear it felt like it happened to me, not because of me. [And what kind of a name is Jackson?! Who does that to a child? Who looks at a brand new, precious infant and thinks, ‘I know, I’ll give you a last first name – that’ll be…]
                “Kel, are you okay in there?!” I jumped at her voice, sending splashes of eucalyptus-scented water onto the faux marble floor.
                “Yes, mom! Please stop asking!”
                “… Just making sure you’re okay.”
                “I told you, they didn’t have bathtubs while I was in there. I just want to soak a while.”
                “Okay… it’s definitely been a while, though, hun.”
                “I know, but I’m fine. There’s nothing sharp or dangerous in here, and I’m terrified of drowning. I promise I’m fine!”
                Guilt flushed through me. I knew my mother didn’t deserve my frustration or sarcasm. I’d put her through enough; we’d all been through enough. Of course, I understood her concern, but I was sure I’d never try it again. It was a moment of extreme weakness that, honestly, wasn’t worth the red tape. I could hear her lingering outside the bathroom door. [Hmm… can you hear someone linger? Isn’t lingering something someone does silently? Maybe I should look up the def…] I swatted away the random thought like a fruit fly. My mind was full of fruit flies. Jackson called it “survival mode.” Basically, my mind conjures up meaningless thoughts and questions to keep me from being suffocated by truth. Where was this so-called “survival mode” five weeks ago?

                The general contention was that I’ve never “dealt with” my loss. And apparently, dealing with a loss means crying. No, I hadn’t cried at all, which I realize may seem odd, but crying shouldn’t be the marker of healing! It’s my loss. Shouldn’t I get to process it my own way? It’s not like I didn’t want to cry; I just didn’t – couldn’t – for some reason. I have a hard time imagining that a few tears would have wiped away the image of Joel’s mangled body on the side of the road or the rush of blood between my thighs as they pulled me from the wreckage. Crying couldn’t have saved them, and it wasn’t going to save me.

                I couldn’t hear her, but I knew mom was there-waiting-wondering-fearing. Laying back against the cold porcelain, I sighed deeply and recalled the life I once had, the life I lost, back when I was the strong one. Before the pitied looks and whispers behind my back, Joel and I were a power couple. Together we started a successful construction business while I worked my way up to executive chef of our town’s best restaurant. I was a rockstar in the kitchen! Even at six months pregnant, I ran circles around my team. [When you think about it, running circles around someone seems extremely inefficient and likely annoying. I wonder who came up with that phrase?] Wife, Chef… soon to be Mother, I took great pride in those titles! Who could have known that, one by one, they’d be ripped away from me by a single text at a stop sign? Ugh. “Mom! Are there more Oreos?!”

                According to Jackson, the weight was another symptom of survival mode. Fine dining had been such a pleasure in both my personal and professional lives that it felt like a gross betrayal to enjoy food after it all happened. Plus, everything reminded me of the loss – the losses. Joel was a foodie, just like me, and we really threw ourselves into good food once I had the excuse of “eating for two.” I remember the first time I had roast duck after the accident. I vomited until I heaved into convulsions. I’d taken this as my body’s rejection of culinary joy. So, for the next eight months, I “punished myself” (Jackson’s words) with fast foods, packaged snacks, chips, and sodas, gaining around sixty pounds in the process. And right now, I could feel every single one of them as I lifted my impenitent heft from the tepid bathwater.
                Too exhausted to towel dry, I laid my wet, naked body onto the full-size bed in my childhood bedroom. You’d think that moving back home in your thirties would be unnerving, but after a month of hospital food, psychoanalysis, and constant supervision, my mom and dad’s house felt like a retreat. I had planned to sit around watching bad tv and eating junk food, but Jackson arranged for me to work on a farm every day. “Maybe working with food again will reignite her culinary passions and give her a sense of purpose.” He spoke to my parents as if I wasn’t standing there. I protested vehemently, but when you’re the crazy one, freedoms are few.
                So, every morning since my first day home, I’d dragged my listless bones out of bed at 4 am and dozed while dad drove to the Brayer Fruit Farm. Agreeing with Jackson isn’t something I’m comfortable with, but it is kind of nice to feel useful, and the work pushes my days by faster. Plus, Lucas and Maggie Brayer are quite possibly the kindest humans who ever lived. As a chef, I ordered from them weekly since the quality of their produce far exceeded all other local farms. They always sent extra little gifts with a note like, “The blueberries were super sweet this week. We thought ya might like some!” And of course, they knew about my umm… situation, just like everyone else in this town, but they never treated me differently than the other workers. Come to think of it; it’s the only place where I’d felt remotely “normal” since the accident.

                I lifted my phone, and it flashed “1:38 am.” Ugh, I knew it was late, but not this late. I shot a hopeful glance up to see if I had any messages, but as always, there was nothing.
                Grief is strange. At first, all you want is to be left alone, yet everyone is constantly crowding you with unwanted food and cliched advice. But then, the dust begins to settle, everyone returns to their everyday, undisturbed lives, and you realize that you really are alone. And the loss that seemed so impossible really is true, and permanent, and slowly swallowing you whole. Tragically, people don’t realize that this is when you need them. When you stop going to work or remembering to bathe and brush your teeth. When the only thing you’ve eaten all day is chocolate and three bags of Cheese Puffs. When you’re drowning in silence. When somehow eight months have stretched into one long interminable day, that won’t end.
                In the hospital, Jackson kept asking me to walk him through the day it happened. He wanted to know what made that day any different from all the days before. That’s what no one gets; it wasn’t any different! If it had been different, maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all. Instead, it was the same day, brimming with the same pain, fear, silence, and loss, over and over, without any end in sight. You can only free fall for so long before the smack of pavement becomes a comforting thought – a comforting thought that veined through me like venom. Once the choice was clear, my thoughts went soft and quiet. The part of me strong enough to object had died with my husband and unborn child. The new shell of a woman who’d taken her place worked alone. She calmly walked to the closet, pushed through Joel’s old boots and tools, grabbed the chef’s knife kit, and prepared to meet the pavement head-on.

                I lifted the bedsheet over my damp body and spent the next three hours trying to will myself to sleep, only succeeding about thirty minutes before my alarm howled without a hint of sympathy. After much internal debate, I dragged out of bed, dressed in the dark, slid into the passenger seat of my dad’s Subaru, and zombie-walked onto the farm. Mr. Lucas generally borders on annoyingly joyful, but he was oddly excited this morning. He boisterously announced that there’d be an extra delicious treat for everyone during lunch. His wife crafted impressive meals for us daily; hearty sandwiches, homemade soups, fresh salads, and often some variation of pound cake, so I couldn’t imagine what this surprise could be. But quite honestly, I was too tired to care.
                It was an unseasonably warm late September day. I pruned trees, pulled weeds, and cleaned until sweat drenched my oversized jogging suit. My shoulders slumped in relief when Mrs. Brayer called us to lunch. The scant level of energy I started the day with had exhausted. I couldn’t care less about eating; I just wanted to sit down and rest. As I walked over to the picnic tables, the first thing I saw was Mr. Lucas standing beside the most magnificent-looking pears I’d ever seen. My stomach sank as I realized that this was his big surprise. I worked to steady my breathing as the inevitable panic spread through me like a slow-moving firework. I had been doing much better with food, but some things were still off-limits, and pears were at the top of that list.

                Since my first day on the farm, everyone was buzzing about the Brayer’s heirloom pears. Surprisingly, I’d never tried them; each year, they sold out long before pear season even began, there’s even a waiting list. I’d never seen one until that day. I always avoided working near the pear trees, which never proved tricky on three hundred acres of land. For the first time ever, I wished for Jackson’s words of wisdom. Thankfully, he never shuts up, so I channeled his specific brand of psychobabble and spoke to myself in his poor man’s James Earl Jones baritone. “It’s just a pear Kelly, a piece of fruit. It can only have as much control over your mental health as you allow.” I knew that osmosis-Jackson was right, but I just wasn’t prepared, not for this. I needed the mental distraction of my trusty fruit flies, but they were overpowered by the memory of roast duck and bile.
                My panic spread faster when it hit me that this was all my fault. A few days before I started the job, mom suggested we write a list of triggers for the Brayers. Her intentions were good; she wanted to protect me and ensure I’d be in a “safe environment” (mom’s words). But I argued that I was a rational adult who refused to be treated like some delicate flower. In truth, I knew that mom carried heavy blame for my actions. She hated herself for not seeing the signs and listening to me when I said I needed space. I hated myself for loading her with that burden and wanted to prove that I was stronger and could be trusted again. However, as I stood in front of Mr. Lucas’ proud smile and a gleaming crate of pears, I conceded that a short warning list wouldn’t have been the worst idea.

                As we all settled at the tables for lunch, Mr. Lucas cleared his throat and began an impassioned speech while gingerly presenting a single pear to each worker. I forced a smile as I took the shockingly large pome from his calloused, earth-stained hand. As he spoke about fires, rot, and other disasters his trees survived, I watched his eyes sparkle with pride. I’d never seen anyone more excited about their creation – a creation born from great labor and tribulation. Then I thought about my life… myself. What if I had a creator who was this excited about me, the making of me, the purpose of me? It felt silly, and I have no idea where the thought came from, but I couldn’t shake it. What if, even though parts of me had been burned and bruised, I possessed some existential worth I’d been too single-minded to see?
                Somewhere in the middle of my thought, the exuberant farmer had fallen silent. The only sounds to be heard were the orgasmic moans of awed pear eaters. My face flushed as Mr. Lucas’s eyes bore into me. Even from fifteen feet away and through thick, large-rimmed frames, I could see a boyish enthusiasm dancing in those ancient eyes. [He can’t wait for me to enjoy the fruits of his labor… get it? Fruit??]. I swiftly swatted that unwelcome fly along with the subsequent nervous laughter. I took a deep breath, focused, and considered the patience and care required to grow this gift in my hand. My stomach began to settle as the panic slowly waned. I wasn’t thinking about first dates, my Joel, birthdays, or loss, but the offering of Mr. Lucas’s life’s work. He wanted me to share in his legacy and dream – to partake in the beauty he worked so hard to create. Shockingly, I wanted that too!
                There was an unusual, almost ethereal warmth within. For the first time in a long time, I felt connected. Connected to something light and colorful. Connected to something that had roots and could grow up and out of the fertile soil from which it sprang. I gave one last admiring glance to that perfectly imperfect pear, then took a huge bite. My eyes closed, and muscles naturally began to loosen as fresh, sweet, buttery, slightly grainy perfection filled my senses. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted in my life! After what seemed like minutes of bliss, I opened my eyes to see Mr. Lucas kneeling in front of me, but this time those ancient eyes were creased and watery. His partially toothless grin was so broad that it was stunning.

                He reached into his overall pocket and gently nudged a handkerchief in my direction. That’s when I noticed a stream of pear juice flowing down my hand and slowly running over my scar. The sight of it shook me; so much that I froze, leaving his outstretched hand forsaken. That unusual and ethereal warmth began to swell far beyond its containment. There was no sound, but I could have sworn that the walls fortifying my soul were crumbling and crashing all around me. My insides were breaking! I would have panicked, but I was transfixed by the perfect little glistening pearl of sweetness gliding so lovingly over the pain and shame I thought had destroyed me… And right there, with the taste of heirloom pear still lingering on my tongue and for reasons far beyond my finite understanding, I began to weep heavy, bitter, uncontrollable, healing tears.