Under The Apple Tree

How could it be that an extened argument over one apple tree would cause a chain reaction that would affect lives forever?

***

From the she'd been born until eight months after her sixteenth birthday, Iris-just Iris-had lived in seven foster homes. So, it was a given that both she and her twin sister, Amelie, had gotten used to the constant bickering that accumpanied new, uncomfortable bodies in small homes. Yet when they met the Jolas, their eight set of foster parents, everything changed.

Because they didn't fight over things like money or clothes; They fought over an apple tree.

***
He leaned against the columns of our porch, his arms crossed. His jet black hair curled in the wind as he stared at me, waiting. He cocked his head, gesturing for me to come to him.

I stepped closer, wary, the apples I picked up on the way home from school stuffed in my backback. How had he beaten me back here?