Late Bloomer

The small town of Altonville was one of those towns that you could pass through and never even realize you went through it. It consisted of one of everything needed to survive; a store, a gas station, a neighborhood, a farm, etc. There weren't any major roads that traffic used to pass through the town so most didn't know it existed.

In one house lived a family of four. Susan was the mother who lived in this town her whole life. She met her future husband, Alan Hensley, her first year of school and became friends with him immediately. They grew up together and, after graduating from Altonville High School, they got married and moved in together. They lived together for a while and had three children before Alan decided he wanted to go to college and earn a degree.

He wanted to get a good job and move his family to a city. But the closest college was eighty miles away. So he prepared to drive every morning. But during his first week, he got into an accident and was killed. Now, Susan was a single mother of three. She was grateful to have friends and family in the town she grew up in to help her.

The first born of her children was Emily. This girl grew up quick after her father died. She helped her mother with everything she could, doing chores and tutoring her classmates for money. She got a job at sixteen at the local grocery store and worked as much as she could, even giving up her prom so that she could help her mother. She was a hardworking girl but never took time to relax, being the best daughter she could be.

A little over a year after Emily, Victoria came into the world. She didn't work quite as hard as Emily. She tried to enjoy life more like going out with friends to parties or playing video games in her spare time. She did get a job at sixteen as well, working at the local mall. She worked at a video game store called "Game On". She didn't give up her friends or parties though for it. She was considered the rebel of the family, always causing problems with classmates and teachers. Though she loved her family deep down, she hated being around them. She did everything she could to make them mad and mess with them.

After Victoria, Susan and Alan had planned to stop having kids. But one night of celebrating Alan going to college had brought another child into this world. Sadly, Alan died before he even knew that he had a third child. So Susan treated this one like her baby, the last remnant of a man she loved.