Emma was standing under a maple tree, a chipping, green wooden fence just behind her. It was not quite dark, but I knew it was her. I don’t know if it was her loose fitting maroon halter top with white tie dye circles I’d recognize anywhere, the long, dangling mismatched earrings, a lightning bolt, a heavy silver star, a four leaf clover that glinted in the tiny bit of remaining light, or the thin pieces of blonde highlights that always fell just around her heavy lidded, whiskey eyes. She was always fidgeting with those shorter layers, and today, as I inched in closer, I saw that her nails were painted a deep matte purple as if each of her fingers had been roughly slammed in a heavy door.

Her voice had a silvery touch of restraint. “Hi,” she said, smiling like we were still two kids living in the same subdivision in Northwest Boise, her in a brick house the colour of a platter of smoked salmon that had been sitting out for too long, me in a grey brick that looked like the oil faded stripes that her family cut off their salmon before piling it onto a bagel. Visiting her house always involved food: roast chicken with rice or matzah ball soup, black and white cookies or slices of carrot cake with apricot filling that her mom bought at Costco. Emma always said I had the worst taste in music. She’d make fun of me for loving that Believe song of Cher’s, make her voice sound as deep as possible as she tried to sing it, and I’d  walk around whining like Billy Corgan about my rage and being a rat in a cage until she begged me to stop. She pretended that she liked him ironically but secretly she thought he was a genius.

It had been ten years since I’d stood awkwardly at the back of her parents’ living room where they held her shiva, wearing the only black sweater I owned, staring at the pilling grey carpet so I could avoid talking to her parents, trying not to listen to her relatives and friends and colleagues talk about how much she had still been planning to see and do.

 Her cousin Amy was the one who called to tell me. Amy’s voice sounded exactly like Emma’s, and I had no idea, so for a second I thought maybe Emma had missed me. My mom had mentioned that she was getting married. Even with all our time apart, I liked the thought of being invited.  

It took me another minute to process what Amy was saying. Emma, who was always finding ways to squeeze in a workout, who carried emergency Advil and a big bottle of water, had been complaining nonstop about a headache. She said it felt like a rubber band was tightening slowly, pressing into her brain until it hurt so much she cried. Amy drove her to urgent care where they waited for hours. She lay one of those hard hospital beds, tearing the paper every time she thrashed. Then Emma started yelling that she couldn’t hear anything, anything at all, and she looked so terrified, and she told her to rest her eyes, just to take it easy, so Emma closed her eyes. They said it was an aneurysm that no one could explain.

It was jarring to see her now her skin glowing, new tiny tattoos of constellations and stars on her arms shining like miniature jewels.

“You know, I was thinking of you the other day.” I blurted out. “There’s an Alanis Morisette musical on Broadway and I got to see it and write about it. I had this memory of you, all skinny with your hair ironed straight, in your flared jeans and grey t shirt, with that red flannel shirt, singing Perfect and Mary Jane when we saw her play. I remember thinking how amazing you were.”

She laughed, then looked away.

“I was a horrible singer.”

“You were not. It was annoying how good you were at everything. And it was so cool to see you being open like that. So vulnerable…”

She shrugged. “You mean more like you.”

I tried to laugh. “You would have hated the musical. So over the top.”

She pulled a small mango out of her pocket, and took a big bite, its tart yellow juice dribbling down her chin.

“Are you eating the skin?”

She shrugged. “It’s bitter and hard on the teeth but it undercuts the sugar. You know how it is, when you do something a lot even softness and sweetness becomes too much.”

“What do you mean when you do something a lot? That’s what you do here, you stand around eating mangoes?”  

She laughed. “Not just mangoes. Apples, grapes, plums, oranges, sometimes litchees or longan fruit.”

I couldn’t tell if she was messing with me. “So the afterlife is full of people eating orchards full of fruit?”

She snorted. “We all have jobs,” she said.

“Mine is to analyze people’s emotional nucleus. It all goes into the final calculations. There aren’t too many of us. There were some people, I know, whose generosity is the reason they get to do this. I think we both know that wasn’t me.”

Her laugh was like a cloud of rising dust.

“People’s hearts are transformed into fruit so we can stomach the work, but sometimes you can still taste a little bit blood, a piece of a vein or a bit of cartilage that gets lodged in your teeth. So much for being a lifelong vegetarian.”

I grimaced, but she waved me off.  “You get used to it.”

“You look good, Odes,” she said, looking me up and down.  “All things considered.”

I wondered if my skin was still ashy, if the circles under my eyes had faded at all. The extreme nausea hadn’t subsided yet, so I hadn’t eaten much in days but I was still carrying extra weight. I wondered if she knew that it took me nine hours to drive to Washington, Oregon, how I had to pull over to throw up, my fists pounding against the car door, and Andrew wasn’t with me, but he called every couple of hours. I wondered if she knew that when I got there it took me an another forty-five minutes to find the clinic, but the wait wasn’t long. I sat with my legs splayed open as a doctor in a lab coat removed what was left, the parts of the fetus, he said, the baby, the baby, I wanted to scream, that refused to let go.

The edges of Emma’s arms blurred as she moved.

“I know,” she whispered.

After a minute she asked, “Remember Morgan?”

I nodded. I’d heard she’d died about a year before.

“It was very sudden. Her heart was the size of a plum, but it was as acidic as an unripe apricot, so it took me forever to get through.” Something caught in her throat. “The pit, which is usually the worst part, was as soft and sweet as marzipan. They say it happens with addiction,” she said, “it buries and inverts the flavours, but underneath they’re still there.”

“I ate a famous singer’s heart when I first got here,” she added quickly, “I can’t tell you whose. I was so excited, I loved her music, but her heart was like a dragon fruit, impressive on the outside, streaked with hot pink flourishes, but with a texture that started to feel like sandpaper. It was flavourless, like going to an overhyped wonders of the world and instantly forgetting what it was like when you left.”

“What’s your favourite fruit?” I asked her.

She grinned. “At first it was avocado, and cherry tomatoes, but for the last couple of years it’s been carob, the whole thing, the pods too. It tastes like summer, like humidity and heat. Like something growing that will definitely take root.”

She pulled a black grape from a pocket in her skirt and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger.

“Grapes are not my favourite, but this one is okay. Muscadine. Less overpowering. They’re real people pleasers. They always want to be part of a collective, they cling to anything they attach themselves to, your fingers, your tongue, your throat.” She sighed. “Grapes are a lot of work.”

“My heart was like a grapefruit, if you were wondering. I’m told I had tough, leathery skin that took hours to chew through. I was always more than people bargained for, my parents, my friends, bitter even if I knew I was good for you, counter indicated and even poisonous for some personalities.”

She leaned so close she could touch my face.

“I know you thought I was always judging you,” she said, “but I’m not a homophobe.”

I shrugged. I thought about Violet, my impossibly cool first love, who loved ska and wing tipped eyeliner and somehow also loved me. I thought about how mean Emma was to her, how she called her pretentious when I asked her what she thought of her.

I tried to act casual. “Everyone was biphobic in the 90’s.”

“I liked her better than Andrew.”

I started to talk but she cut me off.

“Your heart is like a peach.” she said softly.

“Thin skin. Fleshy, honeyed but not candied, the kind that demands a delicate hand to avoid rotting. As you know, you are very easily bruised. Don’t worry, when the time comes, I’ll take care of you.”

I opened my mouth, but she spoke before I could ask. “You’re not dying, Odelia. You’re just in a period of transition.”

She reached for my hand, put something in it, and curled my fingers over top.

 “It’s okay that you weren’t sure if you wanted kids, and then when you got pregnant, you suddenly knew. Next time, you try, you’ll actually have a baby, whoever you’re with.

Make sure you eat these when you wake up.

She squeezed my fingers and pressed something small into my palm.

I woke up sweating, my left hand clutching the corner of my duvet. Out of my right hand, fell three tiny, hard carob seeds.

About the author:

Part of our Winter 2026 Issue. New stories, poems, and essays now through January 31, 2026.

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