Lessons from a peach by Emi Sasagawa
The Vancouver-based writer is on the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize shortlist
Emi Sasagawa has made the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize shortlist for Lessons from a peach.
She will receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and her work has been published on CBC Books.
The winner of the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize will be announced April 17. They will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and their work will be published on CBC Books.
This year's jury is composed of Conor Kerr, Kudakwashe Rutendo and Michael Christie. The jury selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the longlist, which is chosen by a reading committee of writers and editors from across the country. Submissions are judged anonymously on the basis of the participant's use of language, originality of subject and writing style.
For more on how the judging for the CBC Literary Prizes works, visit the FAQ page.
If you're interested in other CBC Literary Prizes, the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions. You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1.
About Emi Sasagawa
Emi Sasagawa is a settler, immigrant and queer woman of colour, living and writing on the traditional, ancestral and stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Selilwitulh Nations. Sasagawa's debut novel Atomweight was selected by CBC Books as one of the works of Canadian fiction to read in the first half of 2023 and dubbed by The Tyee as "a propulsive exploration of growth and becoming." The novel is an invitation for readers to reflect on their intersectional identity, through privilege and power, and oppression and marginalization and reimagine how we may take up space and hold space for others.
Sasagawa was also a finalist for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize for her essay Dad's the Word.
Sasagawa told CBC Books about the inspiration behind Lessons from a peach: "I was six years old when my grandfather died of cancer. I remember struggling to make sense of it — all my assumptions about safety and permanence painfully contradicted by his glaring absence. As a biracial person, I've had to navigate pain and loss through (sometimes seemingly competing) traditions. I wanted to write a story that reflected that tension, told from the perspective of a young girl, whose notions of who she is and how she grieves are still being formed.
"After being shortlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize last year, I felt emboldened to submit a short story. Despite having published a novel, I still consider myself a nonfiction writer, so I needed the extra encouragement to submit this piece."
You can read Lessons from a peach below.
My mom closes the door to the tatami room. "Mrs. Miyamoto has passed on," she whispers into the phone, pushing me towards the kitchen. Sometimes, she likes to speak in code when I'm around but I know passed on means dead because that's what the doctors said about my grandfather.
Mrs. Miyamoto is our downstairs neighbour. She likes it when I call her baachan even though I am not her granddaughter. Yasuhiro says she is senile, which basically means she confuses people and forgets things, like how she thinks we are living in her hometown in Japan even though we are in Vancouver. Since he started high school, my brother likes to use big words, but never tells me what they mean. I used to ask my dad instead, but I think he got fed up because eventually I got a 24-volume encyclopedia for my birthday. Now, I am only allowed to ask about things that are not in the encyclopedia.
As far as old people go, I really like Mrs. Miyamoto. She's just a little taller than me with small eyes like my dad, and soft and fuzzy skin like a peach. She speaks mostly in Japanese and her clothes smell like Vick's and pickled radish. The best thing about her, though, is that she doesn't care if I'm outside playing with other kids. Whenever she comes over, we just sit in the tatami room, our feet under the kotatsu, making origami balloons. Recently, I've been practicing how to make other things like a frog and a crane, but Mrs. Miyamoto can't see well, so we have to stick with balloons.
When she comes over today, I am watching the one hour of TV that I'm allowed. My mom only lets me pick from two pre-approved channels, and since it is Sunday, I chose this program about a kid that has a radio show on the moon. Mrs. Miyamoto doesn't usually like TV, but she says she is too tired to make balloons, so we leave it on. After the show ends, I notice she is asleep, but her chest isn't really moving. It's happened before. She sleeps with a special machine at night that makes a whole lot of noise to help her breathe.
Now, there is a doctor in the house, and I'm not allowed to watch TV with Mrs. Miyamoto anymore.
#
My grandfather was sick for a long time before he passed on. Every time we visited, he was thinner and balder, and eventually he couldn't leave his bed. He spent the days watching TV and trying to stop himself from coughing. My grandmother couldn't bathe him properly because he was bigger than her, so every weekend we traveled to their farm to help, until one day my mom and I just stayed. My dad and brother couldn't be there long because of work and school, but "you can learn addition and subtraction anywhere," Yasuhiro told me. It wasn't bad. For my mom helping meant cooking and cleaning, and for me it meant staying out of people's way and watching the news with my grandfather.
My school mailed my homework to the farm, so it wasn't like I was missing out or anything. I enjoyed being by myself, and even found an old dictionary my grandfather let me keep with some funny-sounding words like anachronism. When the coughing got really bad, we took him to a hospital, where they put a plastic tube in his throat. The first time the nurse fed him after that, I was worried his food would spill out, but it didn't.
Then, a few days later, my mom got me this book. We read it together in my grandparents' sitting room, because I still needed to practice doing it out loud. At the end she asked if I understood what death meant.
"Like when you go away and don't come back?"
"Yes, kind of like that."
"Like Gabby's dad."
"Y—Hm, no. Not exactly."
"Her mom said he was dead to her."
"Gabby's dad is still alive. He just doesn't live with them anymore. Dead to someone is an expression. Real death is more permanent, like a forever thing. You go away forever." She looked back at my grandparents' room.
"Ok…"
"It's like you stop. Stop breathing. Stop thinking. Stop existing."
"You stop existing," I repeated.
That's all she told me about death.
#
Mrs. Miyamoto doesn't have many relatives in Canada. My mom says since we are not her real family, we have to find someone who is so they can decide how to say goodbye to her. Yasuhiro tells me we should really just send her back to Japan, but we're not allowed to because she naturalized. That's basically a fancy way of saying Mrs. Miyamoto became Canadian. I wonder if it really matters where she is, since she already stopped existing.
My parents keep a key to Mrs. Miyamoto's apartment in a glass bowl by the front door. It has a peach keyring with a tiny bell inside it, like the ones you get when you go to temple. After my mom finishes whispering on the phone, my dad and brother wrap Mrs. Miyamoto in a sheet and then go to buy some dry ice.
I can't be alone, so I have to go downstairs with my mom to look for a red address book. I am not usually allowed in Mrs. Miyamoto's basement suite. My parents call her a hoarder, which means she collects lots of stuffed toys and old newspapers. They say it's bad, but I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping the things that are important to you.
Mrs. Miyamoto's apartment is like a dark maze with large towers made out of books and paper. Where her living room is supposed to be, there is a small kotatsu with a broken leg, and a brownish futon with one of those hard, rice pillows that we have to sleep on when we visit ojiichan. There isn't a lot of space to walk around it, only enough to enter and leave the room.
My mom says we don't have a lot of time to find the phone number, which is her way of saying I have to be quiet, so I go looking for the collection of stuffed toys. I end up in the kitchen, where I count 57 empty boxes of peaches, stacked in three piles of 19 each. Peaches are Mrs. Miyamoto's favourite fruit.
She likes to tell me the story about Momotaro, a boy who was born from a giant peach. When he grew up, he fought a band of Oni with the help of a talking monkey and a pheasant. At the end of the story, Mrs. Miyamoto always says that when she was young and wanted to be a mother, she once bought a peach as big as my head, but there was no boy inside it. I look around the kitchen to see if she kept the really big peach, but all I find is a small bruised one at the back of her fridge. I take it anyway.
#
After my grandfather passed on, I wasn't allowed to see him during the preparations. Even when we got to the place where they put him in a wooden box, he was so high up, I could only see the tip of his nose and his right big toe. Everyone was dressed in black, except me. My mom bought me a grey dress, because she said a child dressed in black was morbid, which means she didn't want me to remind her of death.
There was a lot of crying and some screaming. Two men I didn't know had to pull my grandmother away because she wouldn't let go of my grandfather. Then, they sealed him in the box and my dad helped carry it down the main street, where more people cried and screamed. When we got to the cemetery, this girl who was a bit older than my brother threw herself into the hole where the box went, and refused to get out.
I asked my mom why these people I didn't know were crying and screaming. She said they were in pain and I wondered if they had the same thing my grandfather had, whether they would all end up with plastic tubes in their throats.
"Are you in pain?" I asked my mom.
"Yes."
"Am I in pain?"
She didn't say anything.
#
My mom finds a number for one of Mrs. Miyamoto's nephews who lives up north. There are only four other names in the red address book and one of them is ours. When my dad gets home, he tries calling the nephew a few times but no one answers. He tries a few more times, and still nothing. He really wants to give up, but my mom says Mrs. Miyamoto deserves a proper send-off.
As always, my job is to stay out of the way, so I sit in the kitchen looking at the bruised peach. There's a sweet and sour smell coming from it. I ask Yasuhiro if he thinks a boy could be living in there, but he says only an old man would live in an old piece of fruit.
After lunch, my dad is finally able to reach Mrs. Miyamoto's nephew. The nephew isn't interested in coming down to Vancouver because it is so far away. Instead, he will arrange for someone to come get her. My dad tries explaining Mrs. Miyamoto probably wanted a traditional Japanese funeral, but the nephew hangs up before he can finish.
I wonder if my grandfather got the funeral he wanted, if he wanted everyone to be in pain.
#
Yasuhiro tells me someone is meant to collect Mrs. Miyamoto tomorrow. I ask if this someone is a people hoarder but he tells me to go away. My parents keep whispering to each other all afternoon, going in and out of the tatami room. Eventually, my brother helps them bring up a big cardboard box with kanji on it from Mrs. Miyamoto's basement suite. I can't read kanji yet, so I don't know what's in it but I wonder if it could be the giant peach.
Before dinner, they take a bowl filled with water and a couple of washcloths into the tatami room. Yasuhiro only stays a little while, and when he comes out he looks a bit green.
"You're lucky she isn't your real baachan," he says pushing the cardboard box towards the tatami room. "If she were, you'd be washing her feet right now."
He knocks on the door, and my dad takes the box in the rest of the way. My brother and I sit in the kitchen until my parents come out carrying the bowl and damp washcloths. While my mom takes a shower, my dad tells Yasuhiro to put on the same suit he wore to grandpa's funeral. Then, he helps me find my grey dress so we can say goodbye to Mrs. Miyamoto.
"Can I hold on to this peach from Mrs. Miyamoto's apartment?" I say, showing it to him.
"Ok…" my dad replies, pulling my right arm through the dress.
"Mrs. Miyamoto said I could find a boy in a peach."
"A boy in a peach?"
I nod, putting my left arm through the dress.
"Well, if you're talking about Momotaro, he wasn't really born from a peach," my dad says, pulling the dress over my head.
"No?"
"No." He kneels and tugs the dress down. "I think you've grown."
"How was he born then?"
"It's just a story," my dad says, putting his old juzu in my hands.
#
We enter the tatami room in a single file, with my dad in front, followed by my mom, Yasuhiro and then me in the back. Mrs. Miyamoto looks like she is sleeping soundly in a white kimono. She has an orange juzu wrapped around her hands, which are arranged in a praying position over her chest. I can see little cotton balls in her nose and ears, and when I lean in to take a closer look, I notice she smells like my mother.
My dad lights up three incense sticks in front of him, then places them in a metal bowl filled with ash that we usually leave by the altar. He claps twice, bows, then takes a big breath. My mom does the same. My brother follows. When my turn comes, Yasuhiro helps me with the incense. I close my eyes, clap twice and bow.
We sit in silence for a while until all 12 incense sticks have burned out.
"This is as far as we are able to take Mrs. Miyamoto's spirit." My dad sighs and gets up. He bows, and leaves the room without ever turning his back on Mrs. Miyamoto. Yasuhiro does the same.
I stay for a while with my mom, rubbing the bruised peach on my lap.
#
After my grandfather died, we stayed in the farm with my grandmother for a week. My dad and brother took time off work and school, and I continued to get my homework by mail. There was a lot of crying, but at least no more screaming.
On the seventh day, we all went to church. My parents aren't Catholic, but at the end of mass, we each lit a candle for him. The sign said it would burn for ten hours, but I saw a woman going around the church blowing out candles and putting them back in the same box.
Afterwards, the five of us got in my dad's car. Since I'm the youngest, I always sit in the middle. We went to a flower shop and got some purple hydrangeas because that was my grandfather's favourite colour and flower. Then, we drove to the cemetery and walked around looking for his grave. Yasuhiro found it quickly. He said it was easy to spot it because it was freshly dug, so the dirt around it was darker.
"Can you place the flower near the tombstone?" my mom asked, handing them over to me.
"We're just going to leave it here? Why?"
"Because grandpa would like them."
"He can see them even though he's stopped existing?"
"No, but we can."
#
It's been seven days since the someone came to collect Mrs. Miyamoto, and this morning my parents make an offering of sake, salt and rice at our altar. After we are done with our morning prayers, I grab Mrs. Miyamoto's peach from my bedside table. It's more squishy than fuzzy now, and the brown spots have grown. I cut it open just to make sure a boy doesn't live in there, and then I set it in front of the altar. My mom asks if the peach is for Mrs. Miyamoto. I tell her no; it's for us.
Read the other finalists
- Love is the Enemy by Vincent Anioke (Waterloo, Ont.)
- Ghostworlds by Trent Lewin (Waterloo, Ont.)
- You (Streetcar at Night) by Dorian McNamara (Halifax)
- My Father's Soil by Zeina Sleiman (Edmonton)
About the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize
The winner of the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and their work will be published on CBC Books. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.
If you're interested in other CBC Literary Prizes, the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions. The 2026 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January.
