Excerpt from an upcoming story, yet to be published, based on an interview I did with an amazing woman:
Almost like a nightmare after a long, deep and tormented sleep, she shares the story of a life that left her with no other options. This is a journey that started when she was five years old. Fatherless, a stepfather stepped into her world and offered her sips of Black Velvet. His intention was to make her sick so that she would “lose the taste for it.”
But in a world where food and toilet paper are scarce, (her mother sold the Food Stamps for drugs), Black Velvet formed a bond; a connection between this little girl, and a father figure. Black Velvet gave her a taste of the attention she not only craved, but also needed.
Without understanding that her home life was different from others, she went to elementary school with unbrushed hair, mismatched socks, and lack of insight about the term “double-dipping”. Children can be insightful, but often cruel teachers; they made fun of her, making April aware, for the first time, that she lived “outside” of the normal, picture-perfect world that everyone else knew. Still, April remembers her mother with love, “for genuinely trying to create a good life for us, within her own dysfunction.”
Since talking with her, it’s hard to go to sleep at night, knowing there are girls out there on the streets, right now, with no place to lay their heads…
I’ll keep you posted when the story is fully published.