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.