A Peachy-Sweet Speech Takes a Bitter Turn

🔴 MY BROTHER’S WEDDING SPEECH STARTED WITH, “SHE TASTES LIKE PEACHES…”

I almost choked on the cheap champagne, looking over at Mom to see if she caught that too. She did.

The peach tree was Dad’s thing, he planted it the day I was born and every summer, he’d bring in baskets and baskets, sticky-sweet and heavy with juice, and we would make jam. Mom’s jam. She taught him how to do it. And he’d always say I tasted just like one of his peaches, all sunshine and sugar.

The air in the banquet hall suddenly felt thick, and too warm, the clinking of glasses a mocking soundtrack to whatever sick joke this was. I could feel the sweat prickling on my forehead. My brother, smiling like an idiot, kept rambling. “So sweet,” he repeated, “a taste you never forget…”

And then Mom stood up so abruptly she knocked her chair over, and her face… it was the same look she had the day Dad died, that blank, hollow terror. And she yelled, “STOP IT, MICHAEL!”

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The room fell silent. All eyes swiveled from Michael, still beaming awkwardly, to Mom, whose face was now a mask of rigid control. Michael, finally comprehending the room’s atmosphere, blinked, the smile faltering. He stammered, “Mom? What… what’s wrong?”

Mom took a deep breath, her knuckles white as she gripped the table. “You… you shouldn’t be saying those things, Michael. Not here. Not like this.” Her voice trembled, each word a fragile plea.

I saw it then, the truth twisting the pleasant facade of the wedding: the bride’s confused expression, the hushed whispers rippling through the guests, the slow dawning of understanding on Michael’s face. He knew. He’d always known. The peaches weren’t just about Dad’s tree; they were about him, about the whispered secrets, the stolen moments, the way he’d always looked at me.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the bride, her face now pale, stood up and slapped him. The sound echoed in the stunned silence. “How could you?” she hissed, her voice tight with barely contained rage. “How could you do this to me? To us?”

I didn’t wait for the aftermath. I slipped out of the room, the heavy velvet curtains offering a brief embrace before the night air hit me. I walked until my legs ached, the city lights blurring into constellations, the memories, sticky and sweet, washing over me like a summer storm. Dad’s peaches. Mom’s jam. My brother’s betrayal.

Hours later, I found myself at the old peach tree. The blossoms were gone, the branches heavy with green fruit, just beginning to ripen. I touched one, tracing the soft fuzz. The taste of sunshine, of sugar, of a life irrevocably altered. I took a deep breath, and a single tear, the first of many, fell onto the peach, a promise of rain, and a new beginning. I wasn’t sunshine and sugar anymore. I was something else, something stronger, something that could survive even the sweetest, deadliest of storms.