We chased lightnin’ bugs barefoot with jars in our hands. Not to keep them, just to hold the magic long enough to remember. That hour between dusk and dark still feels magical.

We picked over 32 quarts of black raspberries in one week, racing the rain from a hurricane on the way. It was hot, it was tedious, and my little brother mostly just snacked, but we got it done.

I ran miles to make the team. Played through injury after injury. Barely came off the court. And I loved it — every serve, every win, every ache. Volleyball was mine.

I was born on a market day. Grew up napping under the tables and counting back change before I lost my baby teeth. And now, some Saturdays, I return — to the same booth, the same rhythm, the same quiet pride that raised me.

Not every childhood starts before sunrise, behind a big tractor, or ends with watermelon cracked open in the field. But mine did. This is the beginning of The Rows Behind the House — a subseries of The Apricot Years, rooted in sweat, trust, and sweetness.

We didn’t need a neighborhood. We had Jake — a red and white border collie who let us turn his doghouse into a fortress, who answered when called, and who stayed beside us in the quiet hours when childhood was taking shape.

There was a cheese hat on the top shelf of the classroom closet, and if you spelled your way to the end, it was yours — if only for a photo. I won once, maybe twice. I don’t remember the word. But I remember the feeling. And I remember the cheese.

The media center was never just a room — it was a quiet invitation, a place where books waited like friends. Under Mrs. Praet’s watchful care, I learned to shelve, to search, to belong. And in those pages, I found myself.

I didn’t always fit in. But I always knew where I was in a book. This is a story about quiet corners, daydreams, and the soft world of being a young reader.

They never knew me — but I knew them. A quiet letter to Jack and Annie, from a girl who once believed a tree house might appear just for her.

A poetic letter to a childhood bedroom—pink walls, hidden diaries, farm soil, softball bruises, and all the beginnings a girl could carry in one small room.