Orange Groves

Orange Groves

By Karem Lee

8/13/26

I stood in the shower, hot water running down my back. I smelled oranges and basil, and I think turmeric. Yesterday I picked up this handmade soap at the farmer’s market. I smelled it, and it reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Yet I bought three bars.

I’m glad I did. The foamy soap felt like silk on my skin, and the entire shower smelled of hope, washing away my sixty-year-old aches, pains, and missed opportunities.

I dropped the bar on the navy-blue shower floor. The room was dark. No wintry morning sun filtered in. I scanned the dark floor, but I couldn’t see the soap. But it found me. I stepped directly on it. I slid a few feet and, bang, fell right onto the floor, hitting my head. Sharp pain rang through me. The room began to spin, like one of those carnival rides where you stand and the centrifugal force holds you in place.

I kept my eyes closed, but something was different; the smell was stronger; the air was warm. I reached out to feel for the tile, but instead I felt rich, heavy dirt that would grow anything. A memory washed over me.

“Kara, Kara, is that you?” I recognized that voice. I could see his dark brown eyes, his patrician nose, his wavy brown hair. I could see his long, lanky body. His hand holding mine.

“David?” I opened my eyes.

There he was, the love of my life, exactly as I remembered him. I was, too. I looked down at my feet. I was thinner, more youthful, and my breasts were perky, not hanging down my chest. I put my hands to my face; my hair was long and soft. Everything was just as it had been forty years ago. Even the orange grove.

“How?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t care.” He reached down to help me up, then pulled me into his arms. Typical David, a constant, relentless romantic.

We walked hand in hand through the grove. I stopped now and then to smell the oranges. I didn’t care, either. These were the best moments of my life. Reliving them was a gift.

David and I had been high school sweethearts. He was accepted to Cornell and would become a writer and a poet. I was accepted to IU and would become a teacher. But we couldn’t be separated, not yet. Despite how angry our parents were, we ran off to Europe for a one-year tour. I had worked at a local hamburger joint; he worked for a landscaper mowing lawns. Together, we saved just enough to get us to Barcelona. Eventually, we knew we’d have to find jobs.

David was a radical; that was part of the attraction. He used poetry to express his ideals, which I agreed with but never knew how to articulate. They were as much a part of me as they were his own words.

He was the archetypal American in Europe in the late 70s, reciting stanzas about American oppression, control of the masses, and world domination. After a while, he was invited to read at bookstores and bars. He began asking for money or meals at the end of a reading. Most shop owners agreed, and for a while we could sustain ourselves.

Nevertheless, like any other fad, the Spanish eventually grew tired of him and his arrogance, and we became homeless and hungry. We wandered across Spain until we found Valencia, and I found this grove.

We walked up and down the rows of trees. I could see other pickers in the distance. I picked up a basket at the end of a row and began filling it. The richness of the smell and the texture of the fruit in my hand brought back that feeling of cold nights, snuggled in a single bed at the back of a barn. Pressing my body close to his to keep warm, to feel excitement, to express love. Followed by a few more memories I didn’t want to slip into my head.

“Susan,” I said out loud.

David stopped and looked up at me, a pained expression on his face. “A mistake. I told you over and over.”

“I know, and your apologies made no difference.” I turned away and walked down another row to fill my basket. “Maybe not, but this is another chance to make it right,” he said, spreading his arms wide to show where we were. “All of this was long before Susan.”

He was right. We made enough here at the grove to move on to Paris. That’s where we met Ethan. That’s when my world fell apart.

Ethan was a literary agent. He saw David’s poetry, voice, and style as a ticket to a lot of money. Suddenly, David was part of the crowd. He wrote by day, then performed like a trick dog at parties I was rarely invited to. Susan was Ethan’s sister. She was the pretty young thing on David’s arm at every party, not me.

Susan was the one who told me about their affair. She knew I would leave. I would fly home, my head hanging low, humiliated by David’s betrayal.

I believed he and Susan lived happily ever after, and I chose to forget him. I lived in a state of ignorance for years.

Years later, when I was in my late thirties, my mother confessed that after I returned from Europe, she and my father refused David’s calls and threw away his letters. I never knew he had tried to reach me after I returned home.

At that time, I didn’t care. I didn’t pursue him or reach out to him. The pain was too much to bear. I let it all go once again.

When I was in my forties, I found a teaching position in Ithaca, not far from Cornell. I know why I moved there. I hoped that one day I would walk down the street and there he’d be. Months went by, but I never saw him. My new friends invited me to a poetry reading at our local library. I was looking forward to meeting new people and making new friends. I never asked who the guest poet was. The minute I saw David, I walked out, making sure he never saw me. I couldn’t face him after all this time. I panicked and ran away.

But I was lying to myself. I bought all his books and read them over and over, searching for hints that he still loved me and that he suffered without me. I got what I was looking for; every page nearly shouted my name. I followed his career and his life. He never married, nor had I.

“Let’s forget the past. This is a new start in a magical place. Can’t you see? We were brought back here, to this time and this place, for a reason. We are meant to be together. The grove will wash away all our mistakes; it’s an opportunity to begin again.” His voice was pleading. “I’ve regretted losing you my entire life.”

“Me too,” I whispered, hoping he didn’t hear me. “Don’t go back. Don’t leave me here to mourn you all over again.”

I sat down right there and rolled onto my back. The sun shone down on the rows of trees, and wispy white clouds drifted through the crisp blue sky. I ran my hands through the deep black soil. Funny, the rich, dark soil was one of the things I loved about this place. It smelled of life, of nature, of hope. I have looked for it everywhere I lived, my entire life. An opportunity to grow.

He lay down in the dirt next to me and took my hand. I squeezed his hand and turned my head to see his beautiful, warm, tanned face, just as it was forty years ago. His eyes pleaded with me to stay.

“David, oh David, there’s no going back now. Let’s start again and do it right this time.”

He nodded yes, yes, and kissed me deeply. I kissed him back.