Fruit of the Father

There are not many people in the world who will jump into something without asking any questions first, but the few that do, will change your life. In the summer of 2013, I met Lacey Pierre, the daughter of a pomologist. She always felt it was significant to let people know her father was indeed one of the most important men in the world, because without him, there would be no fruit. And fruit, “now that’s nature’s candy”, she said. Lacey had a different way of looking at everything. My father was a doctor and my mother was a mother. I often wondered if the entitlement I had been brought up with by my parents and their upper echelon circles was what fogged up my views and made me accustom to never being satisfied with the offers life presented.

That Tuesday afternoon in July had been scorched by not only the sun, but the reality of life. We jumped in and out of orbit on the trampoline when the old house phone rang. My mother Daliah answered as Constance, the housekeeper, prepared lemonade. Through the large windows in our sunroom, across the beautiful clay red tile separated by white lines, I watched as my mother dropped the phone and gave into gravity, landing on her knees and screaming out in agony. I knew instantly something was wrong, Lacey kept flying.

Two weeks later, my father’s death was the talk of the town. The day of his funeral, Lacey showed up in a tulle pink tutu and she wore a black leotard under it. It was the only black she owned and she didn’t feel comfortable in it alone. Lacey’s body was more mature than other kids our age. Everyone else seemed to notice her color choice, but no one mentioned it. I on the other hand couldn't care less. I was glad to have this strange human being who smelled like an array of hesperidia around me. Lanky men dressed in expensive leather shoes with vocabularies dipped in gold came and pinched my cheeks. Whispers of how great my father was flooded the halls of our rustic home. Though, it didn’t feel like a home anymore. I sat on the staircase in the east wing crying, when Lacey appeared. I never had a sister. “My dad is a pomologist. He grows nuts and fruits and he tells me it’s a beautiful contribution to society. When my mother died he told me she wasn’t gone, because even after someone dies, you still get to learn about them and that is angelic way to look at death”, she said. Lacey had a grand way with words for an eleven year old. People often questioned how a pomologist could raise such an intelligent being. She loved to read, so naturally we wound up in my father’s study, a place I had never been allowed, before.

Seven thousand six hundred fifty one. That’s exactly how many books lined the shelves. One thousand twenty five, that’s how many he got to read. As I sat in his study, running my finger tips against the hard covers of manuscripts I’d never read, I felt one unfamiliar texture. I removed this tiny journal. It was as small as the length between my thumb and pinky, yet full of pages. A limited edition Frida Kahlo black notebook. Once opened, I recognized the handwriting. Tears rolled down my cheek slowly and then all at once. Lacey joined me and read, “There are no moments in my life I regret. Each either taught me a lesson, or brought me a blessing.” As the pages went on, he described and journaled his most memorable moments. There was not a single mention of his job as a doctor or his education at Yale. Rather, moments like running in the rain with my mother, the time he found a five dollar bill that brought him good luck, and a memoir on the happiest moment of his life, my birth.

I found my emotions fluctuating as I began to laugh while Lacey read the pages. Pieces of my father I had never known were connecting me to him once again, and this moment was shared with a girl whose hair smelled like fruit. A girl I knew I’d call my best friend for the rest of time.

As we finished the book, I gazed around the spiral wrapped shelves that surrounded me. My entire childhood I assumed my father was fraudulent for having so much literature and not getting to read them all, but now I understood it didn’t matter how many he did or didn’t read. He’d lived a life worth telling. And I planned to do exactly that.

I spent my years as a teen jumping into moments without question, with Lacey by my side. I wanted to experience life the way she and my father did, like a glass half full, of lemonade. I had written a letter sharing my story to the company that made the limited edition Frida journal. They loved the story and made me a matching one in pink and yellow, the colors of lemonade. It read, “I am here, and I am just as strange as you”. The quote came directly from Frida and happened to be in my father’s memoir. I quickly noticed I was expressing myself through the ball point of a pen with liquid ink every day. Documenting the experiences Lacey and I shared.

On my eighteenth birthday, Constance served us lemonade. Of course Lacey provided the lemons. My mother’s cellphone rang with an annoying tune called “marimba”. She hated the sound, so she was quick to answer. Lacey rambled on about berries, but I drowned out her voice with the tight pain in my chest. The last time I had ever watched my mother answer the phone was seven years prior, when life took its course. My mother dropped her lemonade to the ground, but her face was different. This was not the look of pain or loss, it was delight. “Daliah, are you alright?” Lacey asked. My mother nodded her head. She began to walk to the study, we followed. She unlocked a tiny drawer in my fathers desk. It hadn’t been open for several years. Inside was a large orange envelope. She attempted to hand it to me, but once again fear took over my body and I was frozen in time. Despite the certainty that everything was alright, part of me felt uneasy. Anxiety would hit me like that. Naturally, Lacey took the letter and opened it.

Nine hundred seventy two thousand and one dollars. A check. For my college tuition and for me to see the world. “Get a degree in something you love and then go make use of it.” He wrote. Followed by, “Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?”, a quote by Frida Kahlo that saved my life multiple times.” Read Lacey. I began to release the tension in my chest.

I realized I had spent my life explaining my father was a doctor, while Lacey spent hers proudly stating, “My father is a pomologist”. I realized there were more layers to life than people could fully grasp. My father was a father and a husband and a traveler, a writer and a cyclist and a brother, a man who loved to sew and cook and clean, a man who spoke French and Creole and Spanish and English, and he chose to identify as a doctor. He was more than just one thing, just like Lacey’s father was more than just a man who grew fruit. She knew, she always knew there was more than meets the surface in every human being. For the first time, I knew too.

I took that money and went to school for film, I was studying to be a screen-playwright. I wanted to tell the story of my father and Lacey’s father. We traveled the world visiting the same places my father had, I made sure to visit the ones he never got to as well, and to read as many compositions of writing as possible. Lacey went on to open her own cafe, except instead of coffee they served any hesperidium one could think of in the form of a drink. Each drink came with a limited edition notebook and people shared poetry and stories from near and far, they even performed stand up comedy.

There are hardly any moments in life worth sharing, but the summer I met Lacey Pierre, is. After all, her father is a pomologist.