Good decisions like little slice of heaven

If you ask me, the forbidden fruit Eve plucked from the tree — the fruit that led to the end of the good life in the Garden of Eden — wasn’t an apple. It was a peach. And it wasn’t an ordinary peach; it was a perfect white peach. When I was in my early 20s, I dated a man who introduced me to white peaches. His family had grown them, and he feigned horror that I had never tasted one. He picked a small pale peach out of a basket at the market, peeled it and placed a thin slice on my tongue. It was exquisite. It also was the only lasting souvenir of our time together. We went our separate ways, and I don’t know what became of him. I married another man and raised a family. I went back to the fat, juicy southern-grown peaches I had always known. Oh, I bought white peaches occasionally but it was always a gamble. I had learned that they could be pretty on the outside but bland and tasteless on the inside. I hadn’t had a white peach in years until last summer. My daughters and I spent a week in a crooked little cottage perched so high on an Oregon hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean, it was a five-minute walk down to the beach and a 10-minute walk back up. We spent our days down on the shore scratching for agates in the surf, napping and reading. Each day we ate a lunch of cheese, fruit and sandwiches. I bought a basket of white peaches at the grocery store and served them to the girls. My older daughters liked them well enough, but when my youngest bit into the pale sliver I popped into her mouth, she closed her eyes, chewed slowly, and sighed deeply when it was gone. I laughed at her reaction. It was basic and visceral. And I knew it well. For the rest of the week we ate those peaches. We sliced them and ate them standing in front of the sink. We covered them with heavy cream and ate them for dessert. And when they were gone, she begged for more. I bought another basket but sadly our luck didn’t hold and the new peaches were disappointing. My daughter took a bite and looked at me as if to say, “How could you promise me paradise and then bring me this.” But that’s how it is with white peaches. That’s how it is with everything. A long time ago a man brought me peaches. But even then I knew on some level that a life with him would be as short as peach season and just as inconsistent. On a good year he would be sweet and satisfying, but if conditions weren’t perfect he would be bitter and break my heart. So I chose another. Now, my youngest child, the little peach eater, is just beginning to learn that this isn’t Eden and we aren’t told which tree bears the sweetest fruit. Life and love are just like a basket of peaches; we make a choice and hope for the best. The mysterious alchemy, the magic formula of temperature, sunlight and hardiness that brings out the blossom, and then the fruit, is out of our control. When things don’t go well we are left with empty promises. But when it’s good, we take a bite out of heaven.