Jax Hale, 64, has followed the same unbroken Tuesday routine for eight years straight. He pulls on his scuffed work boots, grabs the frayed canvas tote Elara stitched for him their 25th anniversary, and drives the seven miles to the Watauga County farmers market, just in time for the first batch of cold brew from the coffee stand and the freshest peaches off the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge. He doesn’t linger, usually. Grabs what he needs, nods at the regulars he’s known for decades, and is back in his truck before the crowds get thick enough to block the parking lot.
This Tuesday is different. The familiar white-haired guy who ran the peach stand for 12 years is gone, replaced by a woman in a faded orange tank top, cutoff denim shorts, and work boots caked in red clay, wiping sweat off her brow with the back of her hand. A smudge of peach juice streaks the curve of her left jaw, and when she looks up and spots him, she grins so wide the corners of her hazel eyes crinkle. He recognizes her halfway across the row: Lila Marlow, the palliative care nurse who sat with Elara for six hours a day the last three months of her life, when Jax was too fried from running his vintage camping gear restoration shop and juggling medical bills to stay awake at the hospital. He’d avoided her after the funeral, too ashamed of how useless he’d felt back then, how much he’d resented her for being able to make Elara laugh when he couldn’t even speak without crying.
He almost turns around, but she’s already waving him over, leaning across the wooden table stacked high with fuzzy, sun-warmed peaches. The neckline of her tank top gapes a little when she leans forward, and he yanks his eyes up to her face so fast his neck aches. “Jax, right? I thought that was you. My uncle broke his hip last week, so I’m filling in for him for the rest of peach season.” Her voice is the same as he remembers: low, a little rough around the edges, like she laughs too loud and spends too much time outside. She holds out a slice of peach across the table, and when he reaches for it, their fingertips brush. He can feel the rough callus on the side of her index finger, from pruning trees, she says, when he mentions it. The peach is so sweet it makes his teeth ache, juice running down his wrist before he can wipe it off.
They talk for 20 minutes, longer than he’s talked to anyone who isn’t a USPS worker in three years. She tells him she quit her nursing job last year, took over half her uncle’s orchard, lives in a tiny cabin on the property with three rescue dogs. She admits she’s been buying his restored cast iron stoves off eBay for the last two years, had no idea the seller was the same quiet guy who brought Elara peaches every single day in the hospital. “You used to cut the skin off for her, right? I never forgot that. She’d talk about how you’d drive 45 minutes out of your way to get the peaches she liked, even when you were working 12 hour days.” The words hit him like a fist to the chest, the old guilt flaring first, then something warmer, softer, something he hasn’t felt since before Elara got sick.
She invites him out to the orchard after the market closes, says the best peaches are the ones growing on the trees at the far end, the ones too banged up to sell at the stand, but twice as sweet. He hesitates, the voice in his head that’s been yammering for eight years screaming that this is wrong, that he’s betraying Elara, that he’s too old, too broken, too set in his ways to be hanging around a woman 26 years younger than him who saw him at his absolute worst. But then she tilts her head, and the golden late afternoon sun hits her hair, and he says yes before he can talk himself out of it.
The orchard is 20 minutes outside of town, down a rutted dirt road lined with pine trees. The sun is dipping below the mountains by the time they park, painting the sky pink and tangerine, the air thick with the smell of ripe fruit and cut grass. She leads him down the row of peach trees, chattering about how she’s planting a batch of heirloom apple trees next spring, wants to make hard cider to sell at the market next fall. She reaches up for a peach hanging from a high branch, her shirt riding up just enough to show a sliver of sunburnt, freckled skin at her hip, and when her boot slips on a patch of rotting fruit on the ground, he reaches out automatically, catching her by the waist to steady her. His palms are rough from sanding canvas and scrubbing rust off cast iron, and she doesn’t pull away, just rests her hand on his forearm for a second, her skin warm through the thin fabric of his flannel shirt.
She says she’s thought about him a lot over the last eight years, wondered if he was okay, if he ever stopped blaming himself for Elara getting sick. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just hands her the peach she was reaching for, and when she takes a bite, juice runs down her chin, and he wipes it off with the pad of his thumb before he can think better of it. She leans into his touch, just a little, and he feels that tight, heavy weight he’s been carrying in his chest since the day Elara died loosen, just a fraction.
He fills his tote with peaches before he leaves, and she scribbles her phone number on a bright yellow produce sticker, presses it into the palm of his hand. He drives home with the windows down, the sweet smell of peaches filling the cab of his old Ford, and as soon as he pulls into his driveway, he pulls out his phone, types the number in, and hits save before he can second guess it.
