An excerpt from my story, The Apple Orchard, in the anthology, You’re Still The One.

 

For most of my childhood I was poor.

I spent years living in a dismal trailer next to an apple orchard. I have spent years trying to forget those years.

My mother died the day after we made an apple pie.

I left home at sixteen.

I fell in love with a man I met at a waterfall. Something very sad happened.

We broke up. I have never stopped missing him.

I wore used clothing until I was twenty-two.

After college I worked for a high-end retail corporation. My fancy outfits helped me to hide my past from myself. I ended up vice president.

I saved money. When you grow up poor, you fight hard to leave poverty far behind.

I was fired when I told my boss off. She threw her Manolo Blahniks at me.

My dad died an hour after I was fired. We hadn’t spoken in years because he was both scary and abusive. He left me an apple orchard.

It’s hurtful that he chose to leave me apples.

I am using an urn, filled with his ashes, as a doorstop.

My name is Allie Pelletier and that’s the summation of my life.