Chapter 10 - The Peach Tree
The spring sun was dipping below the tree line when I pulled my Civic back onto the gravel driveway of Ruth’s peach farm.
The farmhouse porch light was already on, casting a warm amber glow over the wooden rocking chairs. Ruth was sitting in her usual spot, a hand-stitched quilt across her lap, paring an apple with a small pocketknife. She didn't look up immediately as I walked up the porch steps, but I could tell she had been waiting.
I dropped my duffel bag by the door—the same duffel bag I had packed eight years ago—and sank into the rocking chair beside her.
“It’s done,” I said, my voice heavy with an exhaustion that felt like it had been building for a decade. “Or at least, the first part of it is.”
Ruth sliced a piece of apple off the blade and offered it to me. I took it, the crisp, sweet taste grounding me in the present moment.
“Your daddy called about an hour ago,” Ruth said mildly, her eyes fixed on the distant orchard rows. “Said some boxes were left on his front porch tonight. Old photographs. A silver frame with the glass smashed out of it. Said Suzanne Lockheart checked herself into a private clinic down in Mobile this afternoon.”
I chewed slowly, letting the realization settle into my bones. The cage was empty. The door was unlocked.
“What about you, child?” Ruth asked, turning her wise, weathered gaze toward me. “What are you going to do with your room?”
I looked down at my hands, remembering the way the bark felt on the dying peach tree behind the barn—how underneath the brown, dead exterior, there was always a thin, stubborn layer of bright green waiting for the light.
“I’m not going back there to live,” I said, my voice steady and clear. “I’m going to clean it out. Every box, every old memory they tried to bury. And then I’m going to help you prune the north orchard before the summer bloom.”
Ruth smiled, a slow, deep crinkling of the corners of her eyes, and reached out to pat my knee. “Good. Because those trees have been waiting on you to show them how to heal properly.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket once, a soft, muted vibration. I pulled it out and saw a text from an unknown number—not my mother, not Mitch, not Suzanne.
May you like
The northern property line deed was filed today. It’s in your name now.
I stared at the screen for a long moment, then slipped the phone back into my pocket without replying. I looked out over the dark, quiet rows of peach trees stretching into the Alabama night, knowing the ghosts were finally gone, even if the work of rebuilding was just beginning.
