DRAIN - EXCERPT
By the time they’d seen what saw them, it was already too late. Things once begun had their own way of playing out and only what would be, would be. Much like their relationship, this brother, Michael and this sister Mindy, whatever would be, was. One night, oh so long ago it seemed, while living in the foster care of two very wretched people, they had crawled into bed together. “For comfort,” he had whispered. She had agreed, “For comfort.”
This was before the State of Virginia had been able to locate the siblings’ only living relative, Uncle Dabney. In the meanwhile, they lived, terrified each day from Foster Father Fred and Foster Mother Carrie and consoled one another in the nighttime. They whispered to one another, words of encouragement. “It won’t stay like this forever,” Michael would say. “Someone will save us,” Mindy would say.
One night, a summer night, hot and wet, Foster Father Fred and Foster Mother Carrie beat Michael until he could no longer stand. Then they beat him some more. Foster Mother Carrie screamed things as she struck. She would say, “You eat too much!” Slap! “You are a drain on us, Michael!” Kick! That’s what she would do. Foster Father Fred never said a word. Instead, he just sneered and beat.
Mindy felt guilty because she knew that Michael, her beloved brother, her nighttime angel, was being beaten for them both. She cried, she stamped her feet, she even kicked Foster Father Fred. Nevertheless, he was much too strong and merely shoved her aside, raining down blows ever harder upon Michael. After that, she merely waited for the violence to subside, which it eventually did.
