Cathy and I went to the orchard on Saturday, the last time this year. It was a cloudy day, the sky threatening rain, but I was happy to drive out into the country with her beside me. She’d had another chemo treatment the day before, but she was feeling fine. It was nice to be in her company. I drove without the obligation to say much of anything, and she was quiet, too. Despite the lack of conversation, I felt the love between us, the sort of love that doesn’t have to try too hard, a deep-seated love that doesn’t have to announce itself, a love that quietly endures.

At the orchard, we went to the building where we could buy already-picked apples and pumpkin donuts. I chose a peck bag of Honeycrisp. Then we waited in a long line to pay for the apples and a half-dozen donuts. We found ourselves behind a gaggle of teenage girls—six of them—who were, to say the least, lively. One girl tugged on the hem of her short skirt. Another stamped her boots on the concrete floor, and all the while they gabbed and giggled. One of them kept flipping her long hair out of her face. At one point, Cathy, who’s lost all her hair to chemo, whispered to me, “If she flips that hair one more time, I’m going to cut it off.”

Of course, Cathy wasn’t serious—she had nothing with which to cut hair for one thing—but I could understand the inclination. These girls were like spring colts—leggy and playful and vying for attention—and we could feel the confidence they had in their own beauty and youth. We could feel it because once upon a time, we had their same ignorance of the world to come.

I wanted to tell the girls it never lasts. The assurance? The physical perfection? Little by little, or sometimes in one big rush, they go away, and we realize we’re all vulnerable. I wouldn’t do it, of course—would never be able to bring myself to tell the girls this truth, so for the time, I marveled at their swagger and their vanity. I felt a bit envious, of course, but mostly I felt sorry for the girls and all they didn’t know.

With that, I offer this writing prompt. To give troubled characters more depth, have them recall a time when they believed they were perfect and invincible. What do they know now that they wish they’d known then? Or what are they glad they didn’t know then? You might also find a time within their troubled lives when they have something, no matter how small, that gives them relief.

The last time Cathy and I saw the girls at the orchard, they were off to pick two bags of apples. I couldn’t help but think of all that Adam and Eve gave up when they ate the forbidden fruit and all they had to face in the not-so-sweet hereafter.