Peaches

She knew what animals burrowed where, and what flowers bloomed when, and what trees produced the best fruit. She listened to the farm’s rhythms through the screen like the beat of the heart of someone she loved.
    Cynthia Darlington had installed the fancy latticework in her daughter’s life and then driven away with her dog. Neardawn, Cynthia’d been spotted by the Darlingtons’ neighbor, Horatio Balmeade, driving their 1988 green Jaguar onto the on-ramp to Route 75 north. According to Horatio, Cynthia wore a scarf in her hair and Toonsis, a Burberry collar that had seen better days. According to Horatio, they had both been smiling.
    She’d left a letter on the table. Birdie had it beside her now.
    Walter,
    The dog is coming with me.
    I debated taking him from you, sweetie, but you know Toonsis and I have a special bond. Crazy as it may seem, I took him to a pet psychic in Perry three weeks ago, when you were away selling the camper. As I suspected, he shares my sentiment about your blessed peaches. Toonsis and I are both tired of the smell, we’re tired of the fuzz sticking under our fingernails, and we’re tired of playing second fiddle to fruit.
    Tell Birdie I’ll call her. I’ll be sending for her at the end of the summer, when I’m back from New York. I don’t want to unsettle her quite yet, but of course it’ll have to happen before school starts in the fall.
    Don’t fight me on this, dear. We both know Birdie needs a woman’s guidance at this, her most delicate and impressionable age. High school can be hell.
    Yours,
Cynthia
    The first thing Walter had done when he’d realized they were gone was to go out and buy Birdie two papillon pups, the breed her mother had always said she wanted, as an invisible “screwyou” to Cynthia. At least, that was what her mom was saying now.
    Birdie had the cordless up to her ear, pinning herself against the molding of her window as if it was connected to a long curling cord. Conversations with her mom made her feel like that. Trapped.
    “He’s just rubbing them in my face.”
    Birdie had thought of it another way. She’d thought Walter had given her the dogs to cheer her up. But Cynthia was already on to another topic.
    “Hell on earth. That’s what that place is.” Cynthia was talking about the orchard now. “I started hating it the year we moved in.”
    “But you moved in the year I was born, Mom,” Birdie pointed out.
    “That’s right. I remember the dirt in that place, scrubbing those floors; that was before Poopie, you know,” Cynthia said, referring to the Darlingtons’ longtime housekeeper. “And then the peach work was endless. You know we only had fourteen hands that year. I thought my fingers were going to fall off from all the work.”
    “I didn’t know it was so hard for you,” Birdie offered, feeling guilty somehow. As if the fetus of Birdie could have slacked off just a little less.
    “My friend Nancy always said you were my little bad luck charm,” her mom went on. “Of course that’s not true, honey. It’s just the timing was so bad with you and the orchard, and I really stopped loving your father that year. Fell completely out of love. Poof.”
    “Wow.” That was all Birdie could think to say. Her ear had started to itch. Really bad. “Mom, I gotta go.”
    Cynthia got quiet on the other end. “I’m sorry, honey. I knowit’s not fair for me to tell you these things. I just…ugh. Your dad is such a jerk.”
    “That’s okay, Mom. Poopie’s calling me.”
    “Okay. Bye, sweetie.”
    “Bye.”
    “Sweetie?”
    Silence.
    “I love you.”
    Birdie held the phone between tight fingers. “Love you too.”
    Birdie laid the phone down and leaned her head back against the molding. She sighed, then reached out and stroked her dog Honey Babe behind her butterfly-wing ears. Majestic stuck her nose in for a pet too and licked Birdie’s fingers. She smiled weakly.
    Birdie looked at her bookshelf. Most of it was filled with things other than books—three porcelain clown dolls that Poopie said gave her the giggly wigglies (which meant heebie-jeebies in Poopie-speak), a collection of fairy figurines, a plush Tinkerbell from Disney World, a trillion manifestations of birds (stickers, ornaments, stuffed animals), and a couple of books people had given her.
    Last year at Christmas, Birdie’s aunt Gladys had given her a book she’d bought at Wal-Mart titled Angels Have Feelings Too. Birdie had flipped through it stoically,