Peach pie

I’m holding flowers and almost drop the waxy stems as you stride through the arrivals gate, chiseled in slim jeans, garment bag slung over your shoulder. Everything slows, Matrix-style, with you at the center, closing the distance between us.

Since we’ve been together, we’ve both grown softer around the edges (husky-sized, you joked), expanding in the middle as couples tend to do. But look at you now. 

“I’ve missed you.” I embrace you as a gift, sliding my hands up the unfamiliar, leaner torso, mapping every sinew and muscle fiber in your back. Your hair is longer too, and I brush errant bangs from your face. You tense and pull back.

“We’re allowed to hug now, silly,” I say.

I take your suitcase and lead the way to the car. I sneak glances while I drive. You’re quiet, facing the window as we pass fields and warehouses. As we enter the city.

“I’m so glad you’re home.” 

A four-day trip south of the border had morphed into cancelled flights, then quarantines. Seven weeks passed before travel opened again and you could get a flight.

“You must’ve felt so trapped,” I say, imagining prison-type food lines and bored inmates pumping sit-ups beside steel cots with lumpy mattresses.

“There was a group of us and never enough food,” you say. “No bread, no cheese. Nothing but bland soups and mystery meat stews. I would’ve killed for lasagna.”

“You look amazing.” My fingers graze your thigh.

“Had to buy new jeans at O’Hare,” you say. “Nothing fit after weeks of starving.” 

We arrive at the apartment, greeted with the scent of sun-warmed peaches arranged in a bowl. They’re your favourite, but you don’t even give them a glance. You drop your bags in the bedroom, and I come up behind, wrapping my arms around your waist.

“Sorry,” you say, unlocking my hands. “Jet lag.”

I curl into your back as you sleep. When I wake, you are buttoning your shirt in front of the mirror, wearing charcoal grey dress pants I haven’t seen since we first met five years ago. It was at that fundraiser for the art gallery. My company had donated, and I was there for work and had bumped into you accidentally, slopping Prosecco on you, trying to brush the damp stain from your hip. Don’t worry about it, you had said, moving away, disappearing into the crowd, then returning moments later with two fresh drinks. I tingle at the picture of us when everything was fresh and new and reach for you, walking my fingers up your leg. 

“Are you sure you need to go so early?” 

You grasp my hand, and set it gently on the bed beside me. “I’ll call at noon.” 

“Let’s go for dinner tonight,” you say on the phone later. “We should talk.”

I sense something special and try on three outfits before I decide on one, linger in the bath, and rearrange my hair to get it just right.

At the restaurant, you seem distracted, talking fast and waving your hands. When you knock a fork off the table, we both reach down, and our fingertips touch before you pull away.

“There’ll be a woman,” I say.

You startle. “What?”

“When you drop a fork. It means a woman will visit. If you drop a knife, it’s a man.”

You place the fork at the edge of the table and look away. The waiter breaks the silence by setting steaming plates before us—fragrant pasta you’ve been craving, eggplant parmesan for me. I watch you spoon up a mouthful, chew, eyes closing, before I taste my food. You pause after a few bites, dab sauce from your lips with the linen napkin.

This is the moment, I think, grinning, taut with anticipation.

“I’ve met someone,” you say.

I couldn’t have heard that right.

“What?” I choke. I’m caught completely off guard. I reach for my wine glass, needing something to hold. 

Your face contorts, mouth working on an appropriate expression. Your eyes reflect the candlelight, and I try to focus on the flickering spark while you go through an explanation, a speech that sounds as if it had been rehearsed over and over. You met her several weeks before the conference—an expert consultant brought in on a project. It wasn’t planned, but you ran into her again at the hotel.

“So, you understand,” you say. 

I don’t understand. I begin to sob into the linen napkin.

“We wanted to be fair to you,” you continue. “We…waited. Decided I should talk to you first.”

Is this really happening? I want to scream, smash China, throw things. We decided…we wanted. I seethe, silent, as you pay the bill.

That night you pack a bag, and I beg you not to go. I fling myself to the floor and clutch at your leg. You pry my fingers away and leave. 

For days I alternate between howling in grief and staring listlessly out the window. I can’t eat, I don’t shower. I sleep on your side of the bed, inhaling your pillow. I wander from room to room where parts of you are everywhere, each item clinging to a memory, and I can’t bear to clean any trace away. Your keys gather dust on the shelf where you left them. Dark liquid oozes from the cracked skins of overripe peaches, a cloud of fruit flies hovering above. 

Eventually, I surface from this morass. I wash my hair and launder the sheets in a compelling urge to do something. As I tidy the kitchen, I get an idea. Selecting a knife from the block on the counter, I run my thumb over the blade and plunge it into a peach. I peel the withered skin, slice, add sugar, roll pastry, and shape it into pie. I’m reaching into the oven, admiring the perfectly golden crust when you call. We need to meet, you say.

I walk downtown and find you at a table on the sidewalk. We order and discuss how we will divide our things. I twirl the same piece of pasta on my plate of fettuccine while you offer the bookshelves in exchange for the sofa. 

“I’d like to keep the KitchenAid,” I say. I have the pie in a paper bag. I add the box with my uneaten lunch and push it toward you. “I’d hate to see this wasted. And the pie is for old times’ sake.”

You open the bag, and your eyes widen at the scent of peaches and butter. 

“Oh, one last thing.” I smile, conciliatory. “What’s your new address? I can forward your mail.”

Over the next few weeks, I drive to her house, where I hover, watching. On Saturday mornings, she goes out jogging, and you are there alone. I cook cheesy sauces and creamy desserts. Leave them at the door. I wait to see the gleam of delight on your face when you discover freshly baked bread or spicy pasta, each gift more delicious and irresistible than the last. 

~

You call again, and we agree to meet at the mall so you can collect your apartment keys to gather the rest of your belongings. I fill a basket with pâté, brie, and crusty bread and tuck in your keys and a bottle of wine. I carry it to the mall and find you in the food court. 

You’ve ordered a Big Mac, and there’s sauce on your shirt. Your jacket strains at the buttons, snug over your old, soft jeans. 

“No hard feelings,” I say, offering the basket.

I order a garden salad. A few months ago, I would’ve scarfed down half your fries. Now, I feel a little surge of pleasure with each handful you dip into the ketchup and cram into your mouth.

You rush off after lunch, and I spend the afternoon shopping. I pick the richest cheeses and finest cuts of marbled meat, organic sugar, and pastry flour. When I return home, the apartment is lighter—airier—without your things. 

Dishes continue to appear on your doorstep. One day she was home and opened a still-warm box of cinnamon rolls and tossed them directly in the trash. I started sending them to your office.

Two months later, I hear you’ve moved again, living on your own. I track down your address and deliver dishes to your new door. Do you think they’re from her? I wonder. I park in the darkness and watch from the car. You appear in loose, flannel lounge pants and strain bending over to reach the food.

On your birthday, I prepare a feast—six-cheese lasagna, toasted garlic bread soaked in butter, pie, and whipped cream. I pack the food in a box and place it carefully on the car seat. I’ve dressed in new, slim-fit jeans in dark denim.

It’s been months since we’ve spoken, and when I arrive on the doorstep, I decide to knock this time and present the gift in person. You seem confused when you open the door—as if you don’t recognize me. I’m surprised at how you look too, in baggy joggers and a too-tight T-shirt. 

There’s a grease stain on the upper curve of the full moon of your belly and your face is red from the exertion of walking to the door. Inside I hear machine-gun fire and voices shouting—the new Call of Duty, I presume.

“Happy birthday.” I remove the napkin I had tucked around the food, releasing fragrant curls of steam.

“You, you look good,” you say, accepting the box. 

I look great, I want to reply, then realize your eyes aren’t on me. Your eyelids are hooded and heavy, pupils dilated, fixed on the food. In all our time together, you never looked at me that way. 

“Well, I just wanted, you know, to bring you this,” I say. “For your birthday.”

You release your gaze on the box and remember to say thank you. I watch you turn and shuffle through the doorway.

I don’t think of you for a long time after that, not until peaches are in season again and I discover the first picks at a farmer’s market. I wonder how you’ve been and decide to make another pie and deliver it to your door.

When I arrive that evening, your building is pulsing red from the ambulance outside. An attendant emerges, walking slowly to turn off the flashing lights. They bring you out, a thick lump on the gurney, wrapped in a white sheet. 

I open the box on the seat beside me, dig out a spoonful of pie and hold it aloft in silent tribute. Savouring the sweet fruit and crisp pastry, I close my eyes and conjure the memory of you I will hold forever, the chiseled vision in the airport, walking to me.