Thanks for reading and I’m glad you enjoyed it. I was wondering if you thought I should mention that the daughter died so soon…perhaps keep the suspense a little longer? This story is very challenging for me.
Short Story / Dear Peaches
Dear Peaches,
I don’t know why I’m writing this, it was my shrink’s idea. He thinks this will help me. Give me closure or some such shit. But you’re dead. Can’t get much more closed than that. Whatever. At this point I’ll try anything.
Okay, where do I begin? Hello, I guess would be a good start. Normally I’d ask how you are doing but I already know the answer to that one. Me? I don’t really sleep anymore, I don’t think I’ve had a good night sleep since we buried you. The hours seem to blend, time loses its meaning. They told me to take some time off work to get myself together. That’s when I started seeing the shrink. Your mother brought me to him herself and wouldn’t let me leave until I sat with him for an hour. Not a bad guy, didn’t think I’d ever need to see one of them, though. Just between you and me, it does help.
So, now that I’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way, I’m supposed to talk to you.
Damn. This is hard.
He gave me some rules to follow, when I do this. Don’t make attacks on you and that sort of thing. Try to keep things positive, focus on the good times. And try not to ask questions of you to which I’ll never get an answer. He didn’t want to actually say they were rules, you know how touchy doctors can be about that kind of thing, but he said they were guidelines. I mean, its not like I’m going to get graded on this. No negatives; keep it to the good. I can do that. Just give me a minute.
Well, the first thing I think of, when I think of you, is your eyes. Sure, you had gorgeous deep brown hair and a delicate jaw-line that you got from your mother, but it was always your eyes that got me. Clearest blue I have ever seen, in fact I have watched the skies in hopes of seeing a blue that matches yours but I never have. They held such light, and warmth and vitality and… Do you know who said, “The eyes are the windows to the soul?” Me neither, but whoever did was absolutely right. Through your eyes I could see exactly what was going on in that mind of yours. I could tell when you were hiding extra cookies in your room so you could eat them when you went to bed. I could tell when you had scored an 80 on a test instead of a 100 and you didn’t want to us to know. And I could tell when you were scared of the monster in your closet even though you knew it wasn’t really there. Your mother could never understand you like I could and I loved that we shared that something; something kind of secret. Those eyes could hold me tighter than any embrace ever could.
I remember the first time I felt that bond, that almost physical sensation of connectivity between us. You couldn’t have been more than six months old and you were sitting in that old high chair that Grams gave us and swore that it had served every one of your mother’s brothers and sisters. I was feeding you some processed peach baby food and I was having a hell of a time with it. You’d turn your head one way and I’d try to put the spoon full of mushy food right in front of your lips and then you turn the other way. Or the corner of the high chair would suddenly seem more delicious than my serving and you’d suck on that for a few minutes. The hatch wouldn’t open, the train couldn’t go in the station and the stupid plane never made it to the hanger.
But then, as if the thought had never occurred to you before, you decided to look at me. Those perfect blue eyes met up with mine and it was like…like…BOOM!! Maybe it was me that changed but suddenly I could see that you weren’t just a baby, you were a little person. MY little person, my daughter. You smiled at me at that point and your whole face split in half with the simple joy that infants seem to have hidden just a hair under the skin. I can’t tell you how powerful that single smile was to me. It told me the secret reason why people have children. Screw all that crap about procreation and continuance of the species. We have children to see them smile.
To see them smile…
Anyway, I didn’t have a problem feeding you after that. Your baby blues were locked onto mine and we had a staring contest until the whole jar of peaches was gone. Remember when you asked me why I called you Peaches? Well, my little girl, that’s the story. I put a jar of peach baby food in the casket with you when you were buried.
Its kind of weird what we cling to, isn’t it. God, why did you do it, Peaches? Why did you…
No, wait. There are rules. Or guidelines, whatever you want to call them. Don’t ask questions to which I’ll never get answers. Don’t dwell on the negatives. And remember the good things. Remember the good things.
Goddammit, remember the good things.
Okay, I’ve got one. Don’t ask me why I thought of this it just sort of popped in my head. You were eight years old and wearing that worn-out old pink and white Strawberry Shortcake tee shirt; the stitching around the collar was ripped and there was a hole about the size of a quarter there. I don’t want to say it was ratty looking, but…actually I do want to say it was ratty looking. You had your mouse brown hair, that would only get darker as you grew, twirled out in braided pig-tails, one on each side of your head. We had gone apple picking that day and I don’t know which you loved more: the eating of endless apples or the freedom of tree-climbing all day. Either way there was nothing but joy shining in your big blue eyes.
Oh, how much fun we had, hanging from branches and sitting in the crooks of sturdy old trees who had seen family upon family cling to their gray-barked limbs. Remember when your mother had gone off to the bathroom and we had that little apple war? Plucking the worm filled or bird pecked fruit from the leaves we’d hurl them at each other from tree to tree. Heheheh, you got me once right in the back of the head and it exploded! I had to tell your mother that it had fallen from one of the top branches just as I was walking by. From the sarcastic way she called me Sir Newton the rest of the day I tend to doubt that she believed me. Still, she wouldn’t let me put my head back against the headrest until I washed.
But what I remember most about that day was right at the end. What was it, four o’clock? It was getting late because I remember the way the sunlight shone harsh and yellow through the gaps in the leaves and it partially blinded me. Your mother had already gone up to the cash-out stand to weigh her baskets and I was on my way behind her. That’s when I heard the quick snap and terrified yelp from the tree you were in. “Daddy!” you screamed. “Daddy! Help me!” Apples rained from the tree as I ran to you. I doubt my feet touched the ground more than four times.
When I got there I found the ladder kicked to the ground and you hanging upside down, legs wrapped tightly around a branch that was bent at a sharp angle. Your arm was outstretched reaching with your greedy little fingers for one last apple. The low sun was flashing through the leaves and made it difficult for me see but I did catch one glimpse of your face. I could see fear marring your sun-freckled face but I also saw the steely determination of your eyes. You wanted that apple, remember? You wanted it bad. So bad in fact that you inched yourself closer to the fruit and you managed to nick it once with a fingernail. What is she doing? I thought and watched the trembling limb bow more than it had a right to. That movement brought along the final creaking moan that ended in a vicious snap. The branch fell and so did you.
With arms out I moved under you and everything came down atop me. I caught you but the force of it made me fall to the ground, knocking my wind out. You started screaming and while I fought for breath I saw the branch had jammed itself into your calf in the fall. I guess even trees get revenge sometimes, huh? Okay, stupid time for a stupid joke.
You gained a knowledge that afternoon, a knowledge of fear and by your terrified scream while you lay on the ground bleeding I figure you learned it well. But I learned something too that day; something about you. When you were dangling upside-down on a freakin’ branch that you must’ve known was about to shatter and nothing to save you from a pretty far fall, you kept going for your goal. Despite those odds you kept reaching. You didn’t give up until the Goddamned tree snapped and dumped you to the ground. I admire your courage, Peaches and I wanted to tell you that. I would have told you then but I was trying to stop the bleeding.
You were a bleeder, Peaches, you always were. Goddamn, you could bleed. And I guess it killed you in the end…. Those bastards couldn’t stop your bleeding. The cuts were just too long and deep. Yeah, sorry. Trying not to dwell on the negatives, I swear.
You know what I love about our relationship? The fact that you could tell me anything. Not that you could hide much from me anyway; all I’d have to do was look into your eyes to find out if something was wrong, but it didn’t come to that very often. I think you know how much I respected you for that but I don’t think I ever thanked you. You, my Peaches, my little girl.
Heh-heh, I remember the day I found out you weren’t “Daddy’s Little Angel,” anymore. You were what? Seventeen? Even now as I’m writing this I’m shaking my head. Oh what was his name? Long, dark hair like a mop head (actually, I think that’s what your mother called him!) it hung into his eyes and he was always wearing those freaky rock-band tee shirts with skulls and snakes on them.
Anyway, you had just broken up with Mop-Head and spent an entire Saturday in your room crying. Well, I didn’t know you were crying at that point but considering it was the first Saturday you had ever stayed inside in six months I knew something was wrong. So I knocked on your door and when you didn’t answer, even to say, “Get the hell away!” I let myself in. I found you lying face down on your bed, your puffy baby-blue comforter rolled up into a ball and used as a pillow. Peaches! I called out softly and you lifted those swelled and blood-shot blue eyes to me and all I could see in them was a world of hurt that only a seventeen year old girl could have. I sat down on your bed and you let me rub my hand in small circles on your back. You began to cry.
What’s wrong, I asked and you told me all about how Mop-Head had broken up with you and your world had crashed in on you like a house of cards. You were always the type of girl who could see her own wedding after the first date. And I knew it was hard for you. But you had had other boyfriends before him and had ended those relationships with scarcely more than a sniffle. But this was different. I urged you, Peaches, what’s wrong? You can tell me. And after about ten minutes of back rubbing and gentle questions, well, you still didn’t tell me, but you looked me in the eyes. It was like some psychic pulse or something but I knew from that one look, through those red-rimmed baby-blues. You had sex with Mop-Head.
Now, I’d like to say that I was the perfect father, that I understood completely and that I calmly kissed you on the forehead and told you everything would be okay, that not all men are jerks. But I screamed just as loud as the next father and I still feel guilty about some of the words I used on you that day. And I distinctly remember forbidding you to ever speak to another boy again.
I also distinctly remember you not taking my tirade lightly. You screamed back at me and even with tears pouring down your flushed and angry face you didn’t back down. “But, Daddy, I love him!” you shouted. And then more quietly, almost an afterthought, “I thought he loved me.” You hung your head and tried to hide your face from me with your hand. For a moment, for the smallest fraction of a second, I felt ashamed of you, but then you took your hand away and met my gaze level. Your eyes told me you were scared, hurt, but I could also see that steel inside you. The steel that helped you face me.
You see Peaches, that was the moment, right there that I knew you had grown up. The moment you felt the consequences of your actions, the bite of their repercussions and stood up to face them. It was the moment I knew I couldn’t protect you from your own actions anymore. I gathered you up in my arms and you crawled into my lap and just cried. I wept too as I realized I had lost a little piece of my little girl.
You should have seen me cry when I lost the rest. When I lost the chance to let you crawl up on me again and let me hold you. You could tell me anything. You used to tell me everything. That’s what’s so hard to accept about your death, that you hurt so badly and I never knew why.
When you left for college you carried such dreams with you. Your future was so bright you’d have to be blind to miss it. There were so many options for you, an architect, an engineer, or even a fashion designer. You were going to write the great American novel and be the first woman to walk on the moon.
But something happened to you while you were there. I know you met someone but I don’t know why you didn’t tell me about him. Christ, you didn’t even tell me his name. I found your grades folded up and stuffed in the seat of the car you used to go to school and I must say that I was a little hurt and disappointed that you didn’t want to show me. A lot of people fail a course or two in their first semester. Your last Winter Break you became so distant to me. In the few times that you looked me in the eye I could see you were worried and was even a little scared. I asked but you turned away or got in your car and left, not coming back until we were asleep. I kept thinking terrible things. Had you gotten messed up in drugs? Partied too hard and didn’t know how to back off? Were you not making any friends? It worried me they way you practically leapt onto the phone on the first ring so that we couldn’t answer it, and if it was for you, you’d huddle in your room and talk in a hushed voice. Or, you would continually find reasons to go to the front door and look out the window in it like you were expecting, or fearing, someone would come. I tried to reach out to you, I tried to see my Peaches in those baby blues of yours but it seemed you didn’t want to be found.
It hurts, Peaches. It hurts that you reached for a razor instead of me.
A couple of bad semesters came through but where was that girl who wouldn’t let go until the tree snapped? Did you not think I would catch you? What happened to that young woman who took my anger and disappointment head on and fought back? Did you not think I would still love you? What happened to…
I’m attacking, I know, I’m sorry.
But…fuck it! Fuck my shrink, I don’t care what he thinks anyway.
Goddamnit! You pissed me off, Peaches; you robbed me of my chance to help you when you needed it the most. You denied me the opportunity to look into your big blue eyes and find out where the hurt was, denied me the chance to fix things. Damn it, I didn’t even get the chance! More than anything I want to know why! What drove you to open up your wrists like that? Was it the grades? That new guy in your life? Fuck! I’m your Goddamned father for Christ’s sake! I’m Daddy! Did you think I wouldn’t fucking understand? Why didn’t you think you could come to me? When did you stop trusting me? Why was I pushed from your life? Why? Why? WHY!
Now I understand why my fucking shrink didn’t want me to ask questions to which I could get no answers. Those are things I’ll never know.
But let me tell you things you’ll never know.
Every night I lay awake wondering what could have happened to you. Even after a full year since we buried you I still hurt just as bad. God damn it, I still hurt!
I still hurt.
And I don’t want to anymore.
I miss your smile. The one that made me realize why I became to be a Daddy.
I miss your voice. The one that called out to me when you needed me most.
I miss your embrace. The one that held me as tightly as I held you and you let me comfort you.
But most of all, I miss your eyes. Those perfect blues eyes that let me see the beauty of your soul, that let me know who you are.
I mean, were. They let me know who you were.
I guess that’s what this is about. This stupid letter. Me telling you how I feel. Maybe it will help me let go, put aside some grief and anger. Give me some peace. Some “closure,” as my shrink would, and does, say.
So, that’s what has been going through my head; that’s what has been keeping me from living. I’m sorry for yelling at you, I’m sorry for anything that I ever did that made you unhappy or sad. Wherever you are now I want you to know that I don’t blame you for anything. I hope that you have found whatever peace you were looking for, that your soul found where it wants to be. I can only hope that what you’ve done is right. I wish you well and give you all my love and more. Remember that, Peaches, remember that.
Love, until all the stars burn out,
Daddy
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dellessa reviewed Version 1 -
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June 22, 2006
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i love the very idea of creating a story simply through a letter and i love even more the way you were able to so easily execute your story through such a medium. you do a great job of character description and emotion just using this single letter and you really get a great feel for what the character is feeling and what is going on inside his head. great job. i really enjoyed it.
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Lynn_Riley reviewed Version 1 -
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Honestly, I can’t find any faults with this. The emotion involved is strong and the reader feels it. I do think I understood the character, and felt his pain. This is one of my favorite pieces that I’ve read.
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