Page 15 of Peaches

He’d left her to pick up the pieces of her shattered heart and raise the child they’d created together on her own. And while he made good on his promise to provide some financial support, it wasn’t enough. My mother saved every penny she could so she could use it to invest in opening June’s Café. It washerand this business that had ultimately supported us over the last two decades.

Eventually, my father changed his mind about not wanting to be a part of my life. He must have come clean to his new wife at some point, because letters started being delivered to the café, addressed to me. The first one came around my eighth birthday, and I remember being relieved to learn that this man—myfather—might actually want to know me. But that first letter was a two-page outpouring of pride for his family in South Carolina, for his three young daughters that he clearly loved very much, and his hope that I could meet them all someday. Instead of feeling any joy or happiness about this newfound connection to him, I was left feeling more abandoned than ever before.

Over the next few years, a new letter came with every passing birthday, each with a new attempt to showcase his dazzling family. Eventually, they slowed to coming only every couple of years, likely because I never wrote him back. How could I? What would I have said that could possibly measure up to his stories of life in that cushy, elegant city with his beautiful French wife and three charming daughters, especially when my life here was nowhere near comparable?

Not that I wasn’t proud to be my mother’s daughter. The café never made us rich, but it was always enough to keep a roof over our heads andplentyof food in our mouths. In my mind, my mother went above and beyond to set aside her own heartbreak and put me first.

And so, to let this . . .otherfamily . . . into my life would be to turn my back on the pain and sacrifice she’d weathered my whole life. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—ever do that to her.

Even if a small part of me is curious.

“You could go, Liv,” my mother assures me, as if she somehow read my mind. Even as she says the words, I can see the hurt that’s embedded in the crevices of her pale blue eyes. “It might be . . . worthwhile to know them. What do you stand to lose?”

I scoff. “No thanks.”

She clicks her tongue, giving me a look like she knows better. But I know she won’t press the issue. Not when my resistance is a relief for her anxious heart.

I reach for a clean kitchen towel from where they’re stacked near the dishwashing station. “Let me clean this mess up and I’ll put on a new pot,” I say. “And then I’ll make us some omelets before we open, okay?”

She smiles, but it’s pulled back, and I can’t help wondering how long it’ll take before she forgets about this latest intrusion into the safe bubble we’ve formed around our lives. The last letter I received came at my high school graduation, and it included a check with enough zeros to make me dizzy. Mom saw the envelope first, and even though I’d promptly sent the check back (still without a response), it took weeks for my mom to stop asking about it.

That was four years ago now, and I think we both figured the letters would stop. I mean, this man has already missed out on my whole childhood—what does he have to gain from seeing me now? And what desire could therereallybe for me to attend a wedding for two people I know next to nothing about, simply because the bride and I share a smidge of biology?

Even if I can admit to a little curiosity, it has disaster written all over it.

I press the towel into the mess I’ve made and look back up at my mother. “It’s not worth it, Mom,” I say quietly. “It never has been.”

After a moment, she nods. “All right, sweetheart. Whatever you think is best.”

Much later, when I scoot out the back door after a long day of serving what feels like everyone in town, her words still bounce around my mind.Whatever you think is best. I know they’re meant to be supportive, meant to grant me the freedom to move forward however I want to. But the reality is I have absolutelyno ideawhat’s best, because the truth is, if not for my loyalty to her, I probably would have opened the door to this other family years ago.

I wasn’t the only kid in Saddlebrook Falls who grew up with a single parent, but there definitely weren’t a lot of us. Our conservative town cherished the ideals of a nuclear family, and I spent my youth aware of the father-shaped hole in my life, as wide as a canyon for everyone to gawk at. When I was in elementary school, old Maeve used to stop by our house unannounced with a warm casserole for Mom and me, as if we were in mourning over the inadequacies of our lives. Once, when I was thirteen, Mom just about chased Ron Moore off our lawn when she came home from a Saturday lunch shift at the café and found him cleaning out the gutters.

Sure, it wasniceof them to worry, but Mom always made sure we had everything we needed, and the extra attention aimed our way felt like that bad dream, the one where you show up to school and realize you’ve forgotten to put on any clothes. After all the defenses we’d had to throw up, how could I think that taking them down to let the man himself—the one who’d left us in the first place—into our lives would ever bebest?

My walk home takes me ten minutes, and after locking the door behind me and flicking on the lamp in the living room, I know what I need to do. The fireplace still holds Wednesday’s half-charred log of wood from when I’d spent the evening watchingNew Girlreruns with a crisp bottle of Pinot Grigio and a warm bag of buttery popcorn for dinner. It ignites again quickly, and after setting another fresh log in the rack on top of the growing embers, I fish the letter out of my purse where I dumped it on the side table by the door.

It singes in a matter of minutes, until there’s no trace of the heavy scrawl that’s become the embodiment of my father or the words that never fail to slice me wide open. As I watch the invitation to another life burn to ash, I shove down my disappointment and wipe my tired eyes. It serves me well, I know, to safeguard my heart from men like him. Men who’d think of only themselves when things got tricky.

Oddly, the thought summons a new one—one of Rhett and the absurd plan we made. I’d already been a fool all weekend, so intent on getting out of my comfort zone just to feel something new and exciting. I guess I was successful, because two nights running into Rhett sure made me feelsomething.

My mind snags on his stormy eyes and the low sounds of his frustration. On the smell of his jacket when I wrapped my arms around him on the bike, on the enchanting curve of his top lip.

Anticipation constricts my chest.

And then I do what I can to shove that down too, because feeling anything for Rhett Bennett would be the most foolish mistake of all.

* * *

I’mirritable with hunger and a deep ache has been building in my feet all day. I was forced to skip lunch when old man Gerry strolled in with his youngest granddaughter and ten of her friends to celebrate her thirteenth birthday just as nosy Maeve and the rest of Bridge Club arrived for their monthly card game.

I should have been off work hours ago, but Mom’s been shut up in the office for most of the day working on admin duties and Teresa—a long-time waitress here and Mom’s closest friend—called to say her sick husband had taken a turn for the worse this morning, and she needed to stay home with him in case things continued to spiral downhill. Rick was diagnosed with kidney failure in the fall, and Teresa has done what she can to be by his side as much as possible.

Despite it only being Thursday, the café was bustling with enough patrons that kept me from having much of a break since we opened the doors this morning. I know I could have asked Mom to jump in and help, but the sooner she gets through payroll reporting and vendor orders, the sooner she can come out and relieve me for the night.

I glance at the clock again, hoping Mom gets through all her tasks andsoon, just as my stomach audibly rumbles. Taking a quick status check of all the tables in the dining room, I notice Gerry smiling at me, his hand raised in a gentle wave to beckon me over. I smile back and head his way.

“How is everyone doing over here?” I ask when I reach the table. Simone, his granddaughter, beams up at me with a plastic tiara resting on her head.

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