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“I used to dream a lot and almost always the orchard was there. Two acres, four maybe, of these little apple trees. Hundreds of them. Empty and crooked like beggar women when I first came to St. Bonny's but fat with flowers when I left. I don't know why I dreamt about that orchard so much. Nothing really happened there. Nothing all that important, I mean.”

In the beginning of the story, Twyla describes the orchard from her time at St. Bonny’s. She foreshadows the significance of the orchard by downplaying its importance and claiming that nothing really happened there. She is puzzled about why she keeps dreaming about the orchard and is unaware that the reason is that it is a significant place from her past. The orchard is important because it is the place where the gar girls attacked Maggie. The imagery of the gnarled and crooked trees represents Maggie’s disability. The orchard is also significant because it is where Roberta and Twyla liked to play while at St. Bonny’s. It represents a time in their lives when both girls were forced to grow up too quickly. 

“At that hour the sun was all the way clear of the hills behind the restaurant. The place looked better at night—more like shelter—but I loved it when the sun broke in, even if it did show all the cracks in the vinyl and the speckled floor looked dirty no matter what the mop boy did.”

In the middle of the story, Twyla is working as a waitress at the Howard Johnson’s off the interstate near Newburgh, NY. She describes the restaurant in contradictory terms as both rundown and as a shelter. The shelter comparison is significant as it recalls her days at St. Bonny’s. The idea of a Howard Johnson’s as a shelter for anyone is meant to point out that Twyla has always had to find sanctuary in unusual and even unhospitable places. The comparison illustrates that Twyla is a survivor and must make her own security in the world.

“They have lived in Newburgh all of their lives and talk about it the way people do who have always known a home. . . . Half the population of Newburgh is on welfare now, but to my husband's family it was still some upstate paradise of a time long past.”

More than halfway through the story, the setting shifts to the changing city of Newburgh. Newburgh is a real city about sixty miles north of Manhattan that has roots in America’s independence as well as a complicated racial history. It was once a booming factory town with a thriving Black middle class, but Twyla lives in the Newburgh that has morphed into a combination of poverty and gentrification. The city is segregated along racial lines, and the racial strife Twyla describes over school integration was a real chapter in the city’s history. Morrison undoubtedly chose Newburgh as the setting to illustrate the effect of inequality due to racism and governmental neglect. For Twyla, it also represents a sense of security and home that she lacked as a child. The fact that it is a city in turmoil reinforces how Twyla is resilient at finding comfort in discomfort.

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