Peaches

like it was washing the whole world away.

Chapter Twenty-three
    W hen Birdie woke, the first thing she noticed was the tickle of Murphy’s hair resting against her leg. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she saw Leeda too, sleeping a few feet away with her arms crossed over her chest like a mummy.
    Birdie hadn’t forgotten, even while she slept, about the storm. The weight of the world rested wholly at the bottom of her stomach as she extracted herself quietly from Murphy and walked to the door. Gray light was coming through the cracks. She blinked several times and put her hand to the handle. She took a deep shuddering breath, which got caught in her throat. Then she turned and knelt by Murphy.
    “Murphy? Murphy?”
    Murphy started and looked up, brushing the tiny curls out of her eyes and sitting up. “Yeah.” She looked around groggily, trying to orient herself.
    “Will you go outside with me?”
    Murphy’s expression shifted from sleepy to sympathetic instantly, her green eyes widening. “Sure, Bird,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”
    Birdie stood back so that Murphy could open the door. When she did, the white-gray light filled the doorway, like something straight out of purgatory. Murphy stepped outside and disappeared. Birdie waited for her to say something, but there was only silence. “Murphy?”
    “Oh my God.”
    Birdie swallowed deeply and followed after her.
    Murphy had climbed the hill beyond the cider house and was turning in a 360. Birdie scrabbled up after her, her feet slipping on the rain-soaked grass. Birdie had a view of the road first. The power lines lay all over it like dead snakes. A power pole and several trees lay crashed along it like dead bodies.
    Then she turned toward the orchard and blinked.
    “Oh…” she gasped.
    She and Murphy looked at each other, their eyes huge, and then she peered back down at the view.
    The orchard stretched out thick and green, its trees dripping and heavy, the grass churned up and muddy in several places, a few limbs lying here and there. But otherwise it hadn’t been touched.
    It hadn’t been touched.
    Birdie immediately burst into tears.
    After a few seconds she felt Murphy’s arm around her shoulders, which shook with her sobs. She reached out and wrapped her arms around Murphy’s waist, leaning her head against her shoulder, her tear-drenched face sticking to her curls. Birdie inhaled a lock of hair and snorted, then pulled back and laughed. Murphy was looking at her and beaming.
    “What’s going on?”
    They both turned to see Leeda standing in the outline of the cider house door, looking pale and dirty and disheveled. “Are you okay?”
    Murphy stiffened beside her, but it hardly registered. Birdie grinned from ear to ear.
    “Come see.”
    Leeda climbed to the top of the hill, standing on the other side of Birdie. “I can’t believe it.”
    They stood there for several seconds.
    “You wanna go home, Birdie?” Murphy asked.
    “Oh yeah,” Birdie said. “Definitely.”

    Poopie was on the front porch when they came straggling in, beside herself with worry and anger. But once she’d yelled at them and scowled at them and pounded her fist on the table a few times, she told them what had happened was a miracle.
    On Poopie’s orders, Birdie called her mother while everyone gathered around the radio, listening to the reports. Power lines down everywhere. Homes destroyed. All of the pecan and peach orchards within three states had been ripped apart.
    “Terrible,” Poopie kept saying in Spanish and English, shaking her head and clucking her tongue, her chin resting on her hands. And then, scattered between the terrible s, every once in a while she’d say something else. “But good for peach prices.”
    Walter had already called to talk to Birdie, making sure she was all right and saying that he was in town, that nobody had been hurt, but that Bridgewater would have a lot of rebuilding to do. He was so caught up he didn’t yell at Birdie for her lies, which Birdie figured had quickly been uncovered once he andCynthia had communicated about the storm. The phone rang several other times, but they were all business calls, getting the word out that the Darlington peaches were still all right, that orders were pouring in, and that the grocery chains were practically knocking down doors in panic over the shortage of southern peaches, not only for whatever the Darlingtons had left in stock, but for next summer. Even if the other