Free Whos Loving You by Mary B. Morrison Page B

deserved to have their fathers and the other men in their lives lift them to the highest heights, not deny, degrade, or disrespect them. What happened to the women who were repeatedly stampeded for years, were fucked for free, with nothing invested in them, and then were dragged through the venomous quicksand of deception? If they survived before turning stone-cold, were they living or simply sustaining themselves on an invisible respirator, or had they become mush, like those rotten peaches soaking up the soil in my backyard?
    They say tears cleanse the soul, giving clarity to new beginnings. Suddenly, raindrops the size of silver dollars pounded against my patio window. Yesterday the weatherman had predicted clear skies for today. Grant had promised he’d never leave me. I rolled my computer chair to the window, then watched the wet circles until they either disappeared or were replaced by new raindrops, kind of the way I’d seen men treating women. Beyond the patio, a barrier of Georgia peach trees secluded me from my neighbors.
    Oh, I didn’t need to go out in the rain to witness what was on those trees, just like I didn’t need to travel the world to know millions of women were suffering in silence from neglect, abuse, rape, post-partum depression, and the blues. Not the kind of blues that Barbara Morrison imparted in her lyrics to “You Don’t Know What Love Is.”
    Women were suffering from the kind of blues that made the marrow in their bones shrivel; the kind of blues that twisted already-driven stakes deeper into their broken hearts; the kind of blues that scarred from the inside out, aging them seemingly overnight; shoeless blues that left footprints in the icy snow; the kind of blues that didn’t make the headline news until they killed themselves, their mates, or, even worse, their children. I knew those things were real because not so long ago, I was a blue woman.
    Not anymore. Now I was plum purple, with the kind of bruise that temporarily clotted the blood but would fade with time and eventually heal. My problem was I couldn’t purge myself of the beautiful memories I had of Grant. I was determined to get my man back while rescuing as many suffering women as I could.
    Each of those peaches clinging to my trees represented beautiful women, bruised women, succulent women, spoiled women, sexy women, ripe women, and premature women. The fruit that had fallen from those trees, decomposed, and returned to the earth, were the women I wanted to help the most, before they let go of life. No man should ever savor a bite of a precious peach without first caressing her in the palms of his hands, cleansing her soul, appreciating her, and giving thanks for all that she’d given him, especially if she was his mother, daughter, sister, significant other, wife, or friend.
    Ka-boom!
    Backing away from the window, I gasped at the crackling thunder, which shook my mansion from the ground up. I beheld a ray of sunshine beaming brightly through the pillows of dark clouds. It left a warmth across my face, and a remnant of the one woman I’d never forget appeared in the silhouette of an angel. With just a few blinks of my eyes, Mother Nature had shrunk the raindrops to speckles and dissolved the black clouds, clearing the way for blue skies. I guessed the weatherman was right, after all.
    Closing my eyes and then slowly opening them, I glanced at Sunny’s picture resting on my desk, accepting that I was the reason my favorite escort had been shot in the head the day before her twenty-first birthday. I couldn’t bring Sunny back, but I felt obligated to keep a close watch on her identical twin sister, Summer, who was pregnant with Valentino’s twins. Looking out the patio window and admiring the green leaves, I squinted and noticed the streaks remaining on my windowpane, which were as visible as my flaws. That was a good thing. No longer would I hide my past from anyone, especially Grant.
    Peaches couldn’t grow on trees