The Darkest Days

Flashback 2

            “Sissy! Sissy, come. Look what I did,” Brandon’s little happy squeal echoed through the home. As usual, I ran to my little brother to see what he was up to. Normally he’s building a fort or creating a small army of some sort. I ran around the corner to find my little brother covered in a myriad of things. For starters, red, yellow, and green paint covered his face, hands, and clothes. On top of that, there was sand, sticks, and gravel. However, the thing I noticed most was the mess all over mom’s new rug.

            “Brandon! What did you do? Mom just got that rug! She will be very very mad.” At the harshness of my words, Brandon’s smile vanished and tears replaced the blush on his face. Before he could say anything, I stopped him, walked up to him, and spoke softly “I’m sorry bubby. Let’s go get you cleaned up. I’ll take care of this.” I was his big sister. I had to take care of this. The things mom would do when she saw the mess he made on her brand-new Persian rug… I couldn’t let those things happen to him.

            I took Brandon upstairs to the bathroom, stripped him down, and began cleaning all the paint, sand, sticks, and gravel off him. It took half an hour to clean Brandon off, leaving an hour until mom got home to clean up the mess downstairs. I ran back downstairs as quickly as I could and began searching for the items I needed to clean up the rug. The extremely beautiful rug mom bought the day before. It was a navy-blue Persian rug with teal and white designs. I began scraping up the biggest clumps. Afterward, I ran water over the mess and vacuumed it up with the soap vacuum. I did this process several times. I then ran some carpet cleaner over the mess and vacuumed it up again. At this point, the stain was almost unnoticeable… almost, but mother would notice it. I put everything away, and with ten minutes left I ran my little brother’s magnificent project upstairs to my room. I laid it down and stared at it. It was outright the best painting I had ever seen. I then ran back downstairs, sat on the couch, and waited impatiently for mom to come home and scold me.

            At this time, I thought about everything in life. My little eight-year-old brother had gone through so much with our parents. I hate to say it, but my brother was an accident, unexpected. When I was three our parents got drunk at a party. When they went to leave my father yelled at my mother over something ridiculous. My mother stormed off towards home. She was halfway home when she was pushed into an alley, gagged, and r***d. Brandon was then created. My mother loved him with all her heart, but the stress that was put on her and dad made a humungous impact on our lives. Things have been getting better between mom and dad. Dad stopped drinking and mom stopped blaming him for upsetting her that night, causing her to storm off.

            Hearing the front door shut, I came out of my thought train. I stood up and walked into the kitchen to face mom. I confessed to making the mess and informed her of how I tried cleaning it up the best I could. I explained I was trying to make a painting for her, and I accidentally knocked over everything when I got excited about finishing. After all, tomorrow was Mother’s Day and I wanted to give her the best present. I told her that Brandon came up with the idea; however, I told him that I would do it since it was going to be messy. I apologized time and time again, but I think after I said: “spilled the paint” she lost track of the words coming out of my mouth. She stormed me to where the mess had been, threw me down, and started hitting me with the fly swatter on the table. She told me no more projects and that I was grounded until proven mature and responsible.

That night I sat in my room crying. I skipped dinner and went straight to bed. After that night my parents started appreciating Brandon more and me even less. Until an unpleasant night that changed all our lives.