Pear in a Bottle

“Mama? How do you put the pear in the bottle?”

I looked down at my little one. She is almost three and is the most curious creature I’ve ever encountered. Her sparkling blue eyes pick up every detail of this planet where I now feel so small. I take the bottle from her little fingers and look through the clear glass. The yellowish green fruit is suspended in a light golden brandy, bobbing around in its protective cage. I tilt the bottle to the side and watch the beautiful pear roll to the other end. Tilting it back, it rolls away.

Sparkling drops of condensation begin to form around my hand. I crack the seal at the top and take a little sip of the silky drink inside. I let the flavor roll around my tongue and into the back of my throat. I swallow with my eyes closed. No flavor can bring back memories like this one.

I am broken from the enchantment of the bottle by a little finger touching my hand. Her soft white flesh is poking at me for attention. Glancing up to her chubby little face I smile and tell her that is the secret of her ancestors. I’ll tell her the magic spell when she is older. Right now I just want this last day in my orchard to be perfect.

I spread out on the red and white gingham blanket, feeling the hard soil and yellowing grass beneath my feet hanging over the edge. I wiggle my toes and get a few golden blades stuck in between. The sun is at its highest point but the shade of the pear tree protects me from the harshest rays. The air is stagnant today, much like my life. As I look up through the green leaves on the branches, I feel a slight breeze across the back of my neck. It gives me chills even on this hot summer afternoon.

I watch as she runs down the row of trees and remember when I did the same all those years ago. My family worked this orchard for as long as I could remember. I can still see the excitement in my father’s eyes when we started planting a new type of fruit tree. We went from apples to pears to plums. Then we started on the strawberries, raspberries and blackberries.

Back then, it was easy to sell our produce at the markets but imports began coming in cheaper and cheaper. My father just couldn’t keep up with the costs. He had to lay off his farm hands one by one until it was just us pulling in the harvest. To this day I still have little scars from where the berry bushes scratched my arms. I rub my fingers over the light red lines on my forearms and then to the ones on my shins remembering those long, backbreaking days.

In college, I remember the wine trend beginning. Everyone was trying to be sophisticated and passed on the beer for a light glass of moscato. They began putting fruit in their glasses to look even fancier which triggered my entrepreneurial mindset. Why not use our fruit to create these beautiful beverages? I posed the idea to my mother who passed it along to the family. Soon we were making strawberry wine and pear brandy. Any type of liquor we created from our bounty sold out in an instant.

After stabilizing our debt we took a leap of faith and renovated the old farmhouse. We added a whole new wing, a tasting room and even a restaurant. Things were going well until the lock-down. It was if it happened out of nowhere. One day we were packed with guests and the next, we couldn’t host a single person. By the time we had approval to do local wine deliveries, it was just too late. We had nobody to harvest and nobody to deliver. It got even worse when the lock-down was over and guests started returning. There was nobody to run the front desk, nobody to change the linens and nobody to cook. Service plummeted and our online reviews went to shit.

Fearing the worst and now seeing it come to fruition was difficult. It was so hard to see all of the growth and all of the hard work become wasted time. We should have tried to grow slower. We should have tried to grow at the speed of the pear tree that grew little by little to build that sturdy foundation. Our small roots just couldn’t hold us to the ground during the storm. We fell. Now we just lay here on our side watching our surroundings and not being able to do anything about it.

I take one more swig from the bottle and stand up. Unlike the fallen tree, I can start again. I can plant my roots somewhere else and build from past mistakes. I can take that knowledge and apply it to the growth of my future. I can make a fresh start and begin now.

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