A peach tree grew right against the back porch and broke into flower in the early spring. When my grandmother took her evening medicine, her “pills,” I would pull a pink peach blossom off the tree and swallow it and call it my medicine. I was four years old. Or was it three?

Another peach tree grew in the west yard. In September, the little white peaches grew ripe and fell at night into the grass with tiny plopping sounds.

Peaches. . .of the rose family. .