Chapter Five

The pattern was real. I mean every time I got hurt, my mama was surrounded by men. They had been handing her something each time and I finally heard one guy mention. “the money she was making.” I really didn’t know what that meant.

During the day hours, my brother and I were placed under the shade of trees. Different people would come and check on us. They would check to see if my little brother needed changing. Yes, he was the baby of the two of us. He still wet his pants while I am the older of us, I don’t pee my pants anymore.

If my brother cried, someone stuck a bottle in his mouth. I learned to keep quiet and sometimes I played another game I invented. I played, “I am asleep.” No one bothered with me but if I wanted something to eat; I made sure I was awake when they checked on my brother.

I usually got some sort of crackers and my brother got a bottle. Word was said to me when I was older that the reason I was a chubby kid was because I always had a bottle placed in my mouth. That isn’t true. Those people over there working under the trees seemed to like me and mama always said, “looks are real important.”

To be continued…

Chapter Four

That wasn’t the beginning of my new life. My old life of feeling sad and sometimes alone was hidden somewhere in the closet of my mind. This new life didn’t happen every day and I was no good at counting at such a young age but I bet it happened two to three times a week.

Each time it happened, I saw the same bunch of people and men and once in a while, women lined up and at the head of the line was a woman who I recognized as our mama. What was she doing, I didn’t know for sure but I was pretty sure it had something to do with my brother and me, because the bad and painful game always followed.

When these nights played out, I had been creating my own game. I was in a Fairy land and I had lots of friends surrounding me that made me feel loved and I smiled a lot. I learned to visit this place every time rough hands touched me.

I had little bunny friends, and singing birds. There were always lots of pretty green trees and their leaves always seemed to smile down upon me. The strange thing was, is that my brother was never there with me. He must have decided not to come with me or maybe he had found a better place or maybe those bad people still had him.

To be continued…