Excerpted from THE PEACH SEED by Anita Gail Jones. Published by Henry Holt and Company.

Albany.

A southern city running on country fuel.

Divided east to west by the Flint River, this corner of southwest Georgia is graced with majestic pecan groves and wildflower carpets buffered by blue skies; a region where flip sides coalesce, modern and antebellum, old growth and new wood. A place of long, deep pain, still refusing forgiveness; and yet propelled by joys and triumphs. In many ways, even in 2012, life here was the same as it was fifty years ago: a patchwork of citizens—from farmers and businesspeople to college students—going about their days as any other, separate and unequal.

Fletcher Dukes lived a few miles south of town in a widening-in-the-road called Putney. His property has been in their family since before he was born, back when a Black man wasn’t likely to own a paltry lot, let alone seven acres.

Fletcher’s single-story brick house sat on three acres. A long driveway shot like a red clay ruler, straight from Sumac Road into Fletcher’s front yard. If you parked a line of cars bumper to bumper, Car #1 would touch his front porch, and Car #10, his mailbox.

His property’s back section faced north and included a four-acre pine forest stretching out eastwardly in an L-shape, and wrapping around a large meadow where two rusting cars and a pickup had become fixtures. Kudzu mushroomed through windshields, and dog fennel hugged flat tires.

It was unseasonably hot for March. Engulfed by diesel fumes, Fletcher paused, his body jiggling to the old tractor’s rhythm. He used a crisp, white handkerchief to wipe sweat from his neck, then swerved in a wide turn, and maneuvered around each vehicle to mow down what was left of weeds.

Tractor parked, he paused in his seat. If he closed his eyes, hot wind blowing through pines could be waves breaking on a beach somewhere. He had time for a shower before picking up his elder sister, Olga, who lived across town, for their weekly grocery run.

A little while later, Fletcher pulled his Ford Fairlane into Piggly Wiggly’s parking lot, grumbling to Olga about a red Volvo wagon hitched to a U-Haul trailer and parked across three spaces.

“Now whoever this is from Michigan ought to park this rig out on the edge and leave these good spaces up front for local folk.”

Olga, who was slowly losing her sight, said, “We got our handicap space no matter what.”

Ordinarily she would have more to say about northern license plates, but as she adjusted to blindness, she had become more and more quiet. Her reticence continued as a pink-faced man joined them, walking toward the front doors.

“Yeah, I seen’er pull in,” the man drawled, “act like she own the place.”

Fletcher chuckled. “Well, I guess they don’t teach ’em how to park up north.

“Whoever she is,” he said to Olga, his hand cupping her elbow, “she can’t be all bad: got Obama/Biden in her windshield.”

As always, they started in produce, Olga pushing, with Fletcher holding both lists, out front guiding. They turned down the liquor aisle, headed for meat, poultry, fish.

Fletcher smelled her perfume first, a scent he knew well but could no longer name; a soft powdery bouquet that instantly made him think of Altovise Benson.

He and Olga walked slowly past a tall woman with short, wavy, salt-and-pepper hair and skin in shades of paper shell pecans. Her head was bowed reading a wine label, revealing smooth, clear skin at the nape of her neck—a spot women in Fletcher’s life call their kitchen. This woman had a birthmark in her kitchen: a perfect strawberry, almost like a tattoo. This, together with her perfume and long beaded earrings, gave Fletcher reason to hurry past, his heart throbbing. He was grateful that Olga wasn’t in a talkative mood.

At checkout, he watched, thinking about Michigan plates. All six of Altovise’s albums were recorded in Detroit.

Olga chatted with her cashier, a former student, as Fletcher split his attention between the aisle and his sister’s hand holding her ATM card.

If only he could glimpse the woman’s hands, he was sure he’d see matching medicine knot tattoos beneath each wrist. Altovise was part Muscogee Creek.

She rounded the corner, pushing her cart away from him. He took a few steps back, needing to see her walk to confirm what he already knew.

“I’ll be damn,” he whispered, his heart lurching.

Like watching a scene in a favorite movie, he smiled at her long strides, slightly slue-foot. He was only four months older but seemed like a relic by comparison. His granddaughters would say Altovise was fierce in her crisp white oversize shirt. Denim legs vanished behind a Coke display and Fletcher flashed on walking hand in hand, her with a giant teddy bear, at Dougherty’s county fair. If Olga only knew how close they both stood at that moment to their very own Altovise.

As they fastened seat belts, Olga said, “Well, that doesn’t happen every day.”

“What you mean?”

“Estée Lauder Youth Dew. I smelled it in the store on somebody. That’s an old-timey perfume, was everywhere in the ’50s and ’60s, but not that much anymore.”

Fletcher stared ahead at Michigan plates, which now took on a completely different meaning.

He couldn’t explain why he didn’t mention Altovise as he drove Olga home. Later, he would look down through the backbone of this day in search of signs he had missed, and he would recognize that red Volvo wagon as the calm before a storm called Altovise Benson—walking around his Piggly Wiggly. After fifty-two years.

•

Before dawn, Fletcher’s bedside radio hissed a song buried in static, and he woke from a shallow, restless sleep. Eyes still closed, radio off. Altovise’s face played behind his lids like a beautiful song stuck in his head.

“Onethingaboutit,” he said out loud, feet hitting bedroom slippers, “she ain’t just here for a quick visit.”

Seconds later, another song blared from the kitchen and Fletcher scuffed past the living room, reminded that he could stop by his vinyl collection and pull every one of Altovise’s albums. The old spinet had sat idle in the living room since the twins, Georgia and Florida, gave up piano lessons after junior high school, leaving shining mahogany to take on life as a what-not shelf and photo gallery. In other words, a haven for Florida’s feather duster. Usually, keys and springs complained silently, but now they conjured Altovise’s music, and left him thinking how you have to be careful what you wish for: as he made plans to dig a pond in the meadow, he welcomed any distraction from having to get into it with his grandson, Bo D, around the junk vehicles. But Altovise Benson was not what he had in mind.

Bedroom slippers hit kitchen linoleum. Rockhudson, his liver spots speckled with gray, sat dutifully by his bowls as Fletcher started just enough grits for one.

With Minnie Riperton on the radio, hitting notes too insanely high for such an early morning hour, Fletcher pulled his last slice of cured ham from the refrigerator. Rockhudson stared him down until he filled his bowl with kibble.

Fletcher reserved these morning hours for ruminating about family problems. Whatever he could carve off before time to wash dishes, he would act on. Otherwise, he moved on until breakfast tomorrow. He tried to sift through ongoing problems with Bo D, but Altovise Benson kept cutting him off. She must be sick—that always brought people home. But she sure didn’t look sick.

Ham sizzled in hot grease.

Fletcher heard that Bo D was working long hours, but what was he doing with his time off ? Water splashed over hot pan drippings to make red eye gravy. He would ask Olga what her spies knew about Bo D’s whereabouts. He fried an egg for himself and cracked one into Rock’s dish.

After breakfast, as Fletcher dried and put away dishes, a devout Friday rose over Dougherty County, sending a golden blade of light jutting across a legal pad on his dining table. Since talking to Bo D no longer worked, he sat down to write a note.

He had first thought to send a telegram, but you can’t do that anymore, and he wouldn’t know how to send a text even if he owned a cell phone.

Fletcher squinted through reading glasses, yellow pad pulled closer, away from blinding glare, and took a direct action: even his chicken scratch would demand Bo D’s attention:

You have ten days. At 9:00 a.m. sharp on March 30 a tow truck will remove your junk from my property.

With his note neatly folded and tucked in his shirt pocket, Fletcher stepped out into a church fan painting: lacy-green leaves sat motionless on laurels and live oaks, lit by the crystal light of spring.

He drove to Hooper Tire, where he found Bo D’s 1969 Mach 1 parked away from the crowd, as usual. He slipped his note under the wiper and couldn’t help but smile at his reflection bouncing up from a hard-wax finish, shimmering like black glass.

•

Ten days. Fair enough warning, but March 30 came with no word from Bo D. In spite of this, Fletcher’s pond-digging project gave him plenty of tasks that mainly involved dealing with white people he didn’t know, either on phone calls or in their places of business. Living on Albany’s outskirts, he could have as much or as little contact with folks as he wanted, and thereby avoided gossip around town about Altovise. It was odd that Olga—who knows everybody’s business—had not once mentioned her. Barbershop day was coming, and Fletcher was gearing up to punt, knowing his barber, Blue Jean, would be ready to talk about their work together in the Albany Civil Rights Movement.

Along his property’s west edge, a second driveway stretched for several yards, looping around to his backyard. Fletcher was on tow truck watch, pacing along this narrow belt like an expectant father. His boots sank into springy, moist ground, crunching through pine needles, shocking green moss, and leaves. Routine sounds hovered near and far: cackling hens, a chain saw, a bobwhite’s nonstop call.

Fletcher paced on. These seven acres were his blood. He had once been sure he’d spend his life on this land with Altovise. The day he chased her around his pecan grove began as his life’s dream, and was a nightmare by the time he drove her home. Every inch of this land connected parts of him, and at every turn he could shave off memories to savor or regret.

He pulled his shoulders back, thinking of Altovise’s perfect posture. Without a doubt, the soon-to-be-seventy warranty was up on a few of his body parts, but his barbershop buddies still envied his tall, sturdy physique that had gone soft only in places that didn’t matter from afar. When his wife, Maletha, died seven years ago, he instantly became a target for her fellow churchwomen, divorced, widowed, and otherwise. This repulsed him and further validated not being a churchgoer. Family ties have always been religion enough for him. He harbored dreams and hopes for his kin and for himself, separate pockets, same pair of pants, starched and ready. As with any religion, there are tests of faith. When least expected, a dream will slip through a pocket hole—happens all too often with Bo D.

In the six years since high school graduation, Bo D’s rusting vehicles—inventory from an abandoned car restoration business— had become a problem that Fletcher finally knew how to solve. In another two months, instead of a meadow, he’d have a fishing pond. But even thoughts of fried catfish from his own backyard couldn’t tamp down a solid fact: what he was about to do would make a bad situation worse.

Fletcher fiddled a dried peach seed in his pocket, stepping heedfully around fire ant nests—mounds of red clay scattered like land mines through wire grass and sandy spurs. Up near the mailbox, in car spot #10, Obama/Biden 2012 signs flashed red, white, and blue. Four years ago, Fletcher had edged his property along Sumac with yard signs like a Burma-Shave campaign, and reveled in a victory he never thought he’d live to see. Olga’s election night party had gone until dawn. Fletcher told Bo D the whole world was witness to a historical miracle. Now, they focused on President Obama’s second term, and Fletcher had a feeling of naive hopefulness that comes with spring. If gray, hard tips of winter branches can soften under a bud’s pressure, and a woman can materialize from the dust of memory, then anything is possible. Barack and Michelle can be back in the White House in November, and at any minute, Bo D’s Mach 1 could pull in.

Fletcher whistled. Seconds later, Rockhudson lumbered toward him.

“Good boy.” Fletcher rubbed Rock’s short, bristly coat, checking for ticks. “You got a smile on your face, must’ve been a good walk.” Both man’s and dog’s muscles recollected swifter days.

Fletcher uprooted young dandelions with his steel-toed boot, his mind crossed with a question Olga had asked recently:

You and Bo D are in the thick of it again, she had said, but the question is—are you showing your teeth, your belly, or your hands?

He was in no mood for Olga’s sayings. He knew he couldn’t kiss Bo D’s fallen dreams up to heaven—like a piece of candy that touched the floor—so he focused on the move he could make.

Dust clouded as a well-polished, electric-green flatbed tow truck pulled in. Anthony Smith was driving. He had been Bo D’s friend and former business partner, the Mach 1 being their one and only car restored to mint condition that sweltering summer after high school.

“Hey, Anthony. How you?” Fletcher approached the open window.

“Doing fine, Mr. Fletcher, you?”

“Not bad—heard you and your wife getting ready to be parents. Congratulations!”

“Yes, sir, I’m more than a little nervous, I can tell you that!”

“You’ll make it. You starting out whole-footed.” Fletcher raised his chin. “Not quite nine yet. Get you a cup of coffee while you wait?”

“Naw, sir, got it covered.” Anthony held up his thermos and gestured toward Sumac Road. “You reckon he’ll show up?”

“I expect not.”

“Been a long time since I seen Bo D,” Anthony said. “If he do come I bet he’ll be ready to cuss me out.”

“This is strictly business—between you and me.” Fletcher pointed at Anthony. Then he and Rock walked back toward the house.

Months after Maletha died, the first time Fletcher opened the back door and told Rockhudson to go in, the dog backed away, whining. It took a few tries before he would set foot on the slick linoleum, skating, claws spread wide, eyes peering around.

“It’s OK, boy,” Fletcher urged him, “she don’t mind. She told me so.”

Indeed, he’d heard it many times from Maletha, When I’m gone you can do whatever you want; bring in dogs and even chickens—and won’t that be grand!

When his pocket watch showed 9:00 a.m., Fletcher signaled Anthony, setting levers and chains into motion, cranking a ’72 Chevy pickup from its weedy grave. Clanking metal swallowed up the morning stillness and bobwhite’s song.

Bobbing his head to music, Fletcher washed his hands and pulled a can of biscuits from the refrigerator. Spongy, pale dough exploded with a pop. Maletha would be turning over in her grave. She taught him to make biscuits in this kitchen shortly after he built the house, as he was growing his contractor business.

He circled one of many cast-iron skillets with flat, sticky biscuit discs, misshaped by his calloused fingers. Metal scraped against metal as biscuits went into the oven.

Center stage on his kitchen table was Maletha’s old punch bowl, iridescent blue, rescued from museum state in her china cabinet and given a job: holding mail and paper supplies. He and Maletha enjoyed cooking together. Their kitchen became neutral ground. Time among pots and pans was off-limits for arguing. It wasn’t unusual for her to end a heated discussion by patting a nearby surface with both palms saying, “Let’s table that for now. I feel like some biscuits. You?”

He had not made biscuits from scratch since she died.

Rockhudson raised his head and whined as a fake-buttery-biscuit aroma encircled them. Fletcher fished his checkbook out of the punch bowl, preparing to pay bills.

His oven timer went off and Fletcher watched through the screen door as Anthony finished loading the Chevy and pulled away.

“There you go, boy.” He crumbled warm biscuits into Rock’s dish, then slathered another two with butter and went cupboard fishing for a fresh bottle of sugar cane syrup.

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Contributor Notes

Anita Gail Jones is a visual artist and writer born and raised in Albany, Georgia. She is a Hedgebrook alumna, and a 2018-19 Affiliate Artist at The Headlands Center for the Arts. The Peach Seed, her debut novel, was a Novella semi-finalist in a William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition, and was selected as a 2021 Top Ten Finalist in the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.