Sincerely, Jennifer x

We would pick apples in the summertime, and he would tell me that I was the girl that the world had been waiting for. As the red, ripe apples kissed goodbye to the branches that birthed them, he would kiss my forehead, the cool breeze rushing past my face and toying with my dark curls. 

He was a gentle old thing. His voice had a certain softness that seemed to wrap around me, his chin resting on my shoulder as he spoke. 

I could never tell you the truth about him, not entirely. You simply wouldn’t understand. It wouldn’t change a thing anyway. 

It’s far too late for that. 

I was just a little girl when we first met. Seven and three months. It was the strangest day, lasting a lifetime but over in eight simple hours when the morning alarm burst through the door and stole me away. 

He didn’t like that, but it was okay. Soon, he found me again, and again, and again. I was easy to find, because nobody else was looking. 

Mother was busy with my sickly little sister. Father was busy avoiding the mess that he had made, and so I wandered alone, until I didn’t. 

He called me Bambi, and I forgot my old name. I had no more need for it. Everything from before was just a faraway dream, and I was reborn and repurposed. We would dream together, picking apples in the summertime and making plans for the future. 

I was the girl that the world had been waiting for. Nobody knew that, of course, it was our little secret, but I felt a little lift in my tiny, tattered shoes when I remembered who I really was. 

“I love you, dear.”

That’s what he’d tell me. 

“You’re my little baby doll.”

Nobody knew. Nobody could know. It wasn’t time, and they weren’t ready yet. You mustn’t pick things before they are ripe. That’s what Bran always used to tell me. He was right, and I was obedient, so they remained unplucked and unaware, as they had to be. 

I would ask him again and again and again if it was time. He never grew impatient with my impatience, soothing me in soft, sweet reminders of what was to come, placing the shiny, scarlet apples in my itching, eager palms as another summer passed and I grew a little taller. 

My sister stopped growing when I was eleven. 

Picked, although not ripe. I held her in my hands until Mother approached, surrounded by a storm and shrouded in shadows that would never lift. I shook my head, knowing that Bran would not approve, but there was nothing to be done. My hands were clean and Mother was lost. Father was gone beyond recall, at least according to the child support agency, and so I just waited for the summer to come. 

It came, as it always did, and Bran cradled me in his arms, while we asked each apple if it was ready to begin a new chapter. They were always uneasy, which I suppose is a natural thing, when your fate is in the hands of another, but Bran could always make them understand. 

Perhaps, someday soon, you will understand too. 

Do you understand what is happening now? 

There have been so many summers, and as it always does, summer has come around again. I am the tallest that I have ever been, and my shoes are no longer tiny, or tattered. 

He smiles at me, and I reach for the sun, like a little shoot in the ground. I have become stronger than every tree I have ever seen, and I reach for their fruit with ease. 

It has been a busy few weeks already, and many apples have fallen from their branches to be with us. The last, just a few minutes ago, was a little more unwilling than the others. They hid beneath the dining room table, calling you, crying and catastrophising as if the sky was falling in. 

It was quite unseemly. Bran didn’t like that at all. 

They were ripe and ready, but full of self doubt. It’s so silly, really. There is nothing to be afraid of. No reason to be upset. I am only doing what I must. What the world has been waiting for me to do. 

That leads me to you. You answered their call, sending sirens that have now been silenced, and so, after much discussion, Bran has informed me that you are ready to begin a new chapter. 

Perhaps things would be different if you hadn’t answered the phone, or if you hadn’t sent pests to bother us, but there is nothing to be done. 

It is summertime, and I am the girl that the world has been waiting for. You must understand, we are now waiting for you, and you mustn’t keep us waiting. 

You are ready. Just close your eyes and let go. 

Your branch will learn to live without you.