The summers were hard now. Not like she once remembered them, decades ago, as if from a previous life; hazy memories of climbing for crab apples on warm afternoons, of little faces squished with tartness and laughter. They didn’t bring comfort anymore, not even when the cold got bitter enough to freeze the hair off her arms.

One year, the resentment had come, and changed everything. No more positive attitude, no more benefit of the doubt, and certainly no more trusting that “everything’s going to start getting better soon” bullshit. That was the first year that the little ones stopped wearing shorts and t-shirts in August, and were issued the special outside shoes. That was the year the crab apples withered, that everything withered, and just died. She had learned, since then, that it would have just been better if she had died, too. Instead, she, too, withered.