One Minute Writer prompt- Family

"Write about someone you know/knew who was not related to you, but was like a family member."
That's the prompt from One Minute Writer today.


Family. Like Family

Martha was like family to me. I met her when I was 11. My mother and step-father split up and it was April vacation. It snowed. We moved from a nice house in the country to a “project”. I didn’t call it a project then, but that’s what it was. A housing development on the outskirts of town for people with no money. Martha and her family lived a few doors away. There were 3 boys under the age of 5, Martha, and her husband Bob. Sometimes they ate french fries for dinner. I babysat the boys. My brother wasn’t even 2 yet, and Martha’s middle son was the same age.

Years go by. Now I’m 15. I can’t live with my mother anymore, and my father has just beaten me up. I turn to Martha. Myself and another friend of mine take refuge in her attic. In exchange for babysitting and some rent money her family puts a roof over my head.

Martha has found religion. I find it too, and carry my bottle of holy water around with me at high school. We go to church together and I babysit the kids on the weekends. My friend is too busy with her boyfriend so eventually I end up doing her turns too.

I write letters to Martha and I send them to “My mother, my sister, my friend”.

She’s still out there somewhere. She’s divorced and remarried, and a grandmother too.