Song for Peaches [October]

Dear Peaches, I am afraid. And that is hard for a man like me to say. I think about what happened to you with your baby in the next room. It only takes once and I know that the next one is mine. It’s coming for me. Stealthy and silent. It’s that black dog of you-know-what. And on the tenth birthday of Pixie when your mother gave in, I can’t imagine the damage you felt and how you must have thought that would never be you. Because you are young, and vibrant and free and wild. Two beautiful boys had your heart. Peaches, I know you didn’t mean it. I think of how many times I walked that same line. Those walls in that church in Davington, witness to your parent’s marriage, witness to the vows of your own and that black box that carried your mother home. How dark and diseased is this world that now it must bear the sight of your sons, toddler and infant, motherless forever. Your poor father and husband consumed with despair. Dear Peaches, I’m sorry. Peaches: betrayed by her body.