Chapter 3 ~ Sunshine In The Rain

“If you're going through hell, keep going”

~ Winston Churchill ~

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Brian’s point of view. Butler County, PA, the day before. 

It’s early morning, Justin’s violent coughing woke me up. He’s been sick for over three weeks, and I’m hoping he’ll manage some more rest before the next coughing fit.

It’s time for me to go tend to the animals, but before I go I’ll spend a few minutes with him. I’m stroking his forehead and temples, mesmerized by how long his blond eyelashes are. Since meeting him I know that eyelashes are my favorite part of the face. 

I’ve begged my mother to call a doctor, and she just said it was normal to be a little sick when you have the flu. That it just takes a little time and God would take care of him. But it doesn't seem this god of hers is in much of a hurry. He’s been sleeping more evenly lately, not complaining as much and sweats a lot. In films this means his fever is coming down so that's good right? But I'm guessing because the battery in the thermometer is dead and I don't know, he still feels a bit hot when I touch him.

He was a bit skinny already when he arrived but it got worse after… uhm after that first awful day… I've kind of had to force him to eat... and since becoming sick he’s gotten much worse. Yet he looks so beautiful. All I want is to crawl into bed with him and hold him but I’ve never really dared to show him much affection, terrified of what would happen if Jack found out something is going on… I just know he wouldn't think twice about not using it against me. I don’t mind his blows anymore but if he’ll hurt Justin to get to me… I wouldn’t be able to take that. 

I had decided to run away and had actually packed some clothes. Where to, I had no clue, just figured anywhere but here would be better. But the winter was so cold, and Hunter warned me that if I ended on the streets like he had been I would just be in the same mess… or even worse so I kept postponing it. But then Justin came to live here. The day he arrived it had been raining or snowing for weeks it seamed. I was outside fixing something at Jack’s demands and saw him as he stepped out of the car. A ray of sunshine broke through the clouds just then and he looked at me. That’s when I knew I had to stay. 

Justin is so different from the rest of us. His folks have money, he went to a private school, he can speak French and he took art lessons. He talks fancy. Yet he came here. I don’t understand it. The other kids came through social services or some charity at Joan's church. 

Justin’s father brought him here. Apparently his parents were getting a divorce and they thought it was good for him to spend some time in the countryside for a few weeks. That was nearly 2 months ago. 2 months of the worst terror I’ve ever thought possible, having to hide my feelings, so afraid that if I sleep too deep someone will harm him. 

We have cows, pigs and chicken and it looks perfect at first sight. Too perfect probably. Mom makes sure that we keep the sides that face the driveway freshly painted and remove any trash, but that’s all on the outside. The inside is a different story. I don’t know why no one notices what’s going on here. Perhaps if his parents came to visit, perhaps then they would get him out. I guess he pulled the same numbers in the parent lottery as I did. 

Jack’s voice yelling from downstairs brings me out of my thoughts. “Sonny boy.... get your lazy useless ass down ‘ere!  Someone needs to clean the stables…” I feel like telling him to clean the fucking stables himself but I tried that once long ago and he beat me like a dog. I couldn’t  go to school for over a week after that. Reluctantly I get up to leave the room, it’s best to do as he says and I’ll do anything to protect Justin. He’s the reason I go on. The only one that makes me forget this hell we're living in. I really need to get us away from here. As soon as he feels a bit better…

“Bri…don’t go…” he whispers hoarsely, and I turn around quickly, his eyes are closed and the light filtering through the gap of the curtains light up his face. 

“How did you even know I was here?  you were sleeping like a porcupine on a hot day,”

“I’m not a porcupine… but there may be a porcupine in my throat though… “

I pick up a glass with water in it, “here drink this,”

“I can’t swallow, it hurts...”

“you have to drink something, just one small sip… please... do it for me Sunshine” 

As I support him and hold the glass to help him drink, it’s very clear he’s in considerable pain but he nearly drinks up. “Good boy, now you’re going to get better. Now please go back to sleep” I stroke his forehead and then softly rub his closed eyelids. He smiles. 

“Mmm… feels good… I like it when you stay with me… you make me feel safe… hold me Brian...”  I get up into his bed and hold him until he’s asleep again. 

“Sooonny Boyyyy… Do I have to come up there and get you?” The insistent yells seem closer now and I pretty much fly from the bed. Shit! I almost forgot. I met Cynthia in the doorway.

“Shhh…” she whispers, “let me deal with this.” She goes to the top of the stairs.

“Brian is not here, he’s in the cowshed.” 

Jack seems to be content with that, and we can hear him retreat, probably getting back to bed. I climb out of the window leaving Cynthia to stay with Justin. Hunter is already in the shed but he can use my help.

We moved here two summers ago just after I turned 13. It’s my mother's childhood home and after Jack lost his job at the steel factory and couldn’t find a new job they couldn’t afford the mortgage so we came here to live with my recently widowed granddad and to help him run the farm. I remember it was actually nice in the beginning even though we’re pretty far out of  Pittsburgh and I couldn't visit my friends very often. 

The house was bigger than our old house in Pittsburgh. I remember how exciting it was to investigate all the rooms in the beginning. The ground floor with its giant living room, dining room and kitchen and two other rooms, several bedrooms upstairs, with the giant old trees in the garden stretching their branches so close that it was actually possible to get in and out of the windows of some of the bedrooms. Wildly interesting at first but later more of a survival strategy. The best of all though was the cool basement with it’s big laundry room and rooms they used for workers back in the day which had turned into really interesting kind of storage rooms. Now that very basement has become our personal hell. 

My grandmother had died earlier that spring and my aunt Janet was happy to have us. I had always known she was different and even though she was older than my sister Claire, me and her played together since I can remember. I remember when mom told me when I was little that Janet would never be smart because she had meningitis when she was little. I didn’t understand, I thought she was smart, she just didn’t hear or talk very well. She acted silly all the time and I just found her hilarious and liked playing with her much more than I did with Claire who never even let me in her room. 

Our days were filled with adventures, I was happy, had someone to play with and I liked living on a farm. We had a dog now, some cats, cows, pigs and chicken. My bedroom was next to my granddads and I managed much better to hide from my father’s angry outburst. 

My friends in Pittsburgh visited a bit and I got to spend a few times with them that first summer, but then not after that. I didn’t invite the kids at my new school to come over because I didn’t want them to see what my father was like. Maybe also for that reason I spend so much time with Janet. She showed me all the good hiding spots, and warned me about the monsters in the forest. It was true there are plenty of wild animals around and she was afraid of those. I’d seen both bears and coyotes come pretty close to the farm so we mostly stayed close to the farm. She also had frequent seizures so it was important for her to be close to home so that I could get help if they happened. 

Grandpa got sick around Christmas and died in January and things immediately started to change for the worse. Jack fired the farm hand and my parents took in two foster kids my age, a boy called Hunter and a girl who's name is Cynthia. They are both really tough kids who’d been living in several foster homes but always got themselves returned for one thing or another. In the beginning I thought Hunter and I would never be friends, I found him cynical, hostile even, you know the kind where you just know you don't want to get on the wrong side of unless you want to start finding broken glass in your bed. 

But the initial feeling I had about him was so far from what he actually turned out to be. He’s kind of like a rottweiler because after a few days I realized he's really very loyal and friendly. I found him to be a bit of a tease and really would like to learn his almost superpower-like people skills when it comes to charming people because in this environment that is a survival skill. Even dad accepted him right from the start. He’s not as tall as me, but he’s a hard worker and what he lacks in physical strength he makes up many times in smart thinking. He had this calm self secure aura about him and instead of giving up he thinks of solutions. Like when something breaks he’ll simply say “Oh, it’s broken? Let’s fix it then”. Lately though, I’ve noticed his coolness is faltering. He smokes almost as much as me and he’s not as cocky.  

Cynthia is nice and very smart. Street smart, not school smart that is. It was clear right from the start that she had some self esteem issues, never wanted to be alone and we also quickly found out that she could hardly read, maybe it’s dyslexia. She’d been living all over the country before she came away from her mother. She reminds me of that friend of a main character we have in every other popular movie, the one who has no idea how cool she is but just is the coolest one anyway. 

We spent a lot of time together already from the start. She was super friendly, maybe a bit too much in the beginning… I had the feeling she was hitting on me and that was super weird because she really is a beautiful girl, but all I was interested in was friendship. Her being here and some other things I had gotten into at school before she came here made me think that maybe I was… not entirely straight. But it was so confusing. I kind of thought for a long time that I like both boys and girls I just couldn’t figure it out. I tried finding some information online at school but I was shy about it and didn’t know anyone to talk about it with.  

Claire dropped out of high school already after a few weeks. She told my parents she detested them both and she hated living on the farm and she wanted to go back to Pittsburgh to live with her friends. Then she left. It was great, she was always annoyed and yelling at me. Also after Hunter and Cynthia came we each had a bedroom of our own so we didn't have to share so it was good she was gone. Yeah that's what I thought at the time. When Cynthia told me about what dad had been doing to her I was crushed. I almost threw up. 

Claire never called or texted me, didn't even come to granddad's funeral but visited once about half a year later. Our parents were really stiff, dad was polite to her and mom talked a lot about how nice the new priest at church was and poured herself several glasses of sherry. Claire mostly ignored them. It was so strange. Before when mom mentioned church she would complain and ask mom to stop with the Jesus talk, and dad, well, he never used to be polite to her before. She looked great and she brought me a super cool vintage leather jacket and a new pair of jeans and hugged me and everything. I was very surprised. She used to be so pissed off always when she lived at home. Now she smiled and showed more interest in me than she ever did before asked me if everything was alright and even talked to Hunter and Cynthia asking them how they liked staying here. She NEVER talked to my friends before. "You're sure everything is alright?" she asked and eyed us suspiciously, especially Cynthia. 

"Everything is fine," mom quickly said, and the three of them exchanged looks I didn’t understand. "No one is getting special treatment, Cynthia and Hunter may not be our flesh and blood but they have the same amount of chores as Brian"

Claire gave mom a look and I got this strange feeling that I was missing something. I suddenly realized I had this vague memory of the day when they arrived, of dad giving Cynthia a pat on the back and told her she was a fine girl and mom was quick to hiss at him "Don't you dare! No picking favorites, everyone is equal here. I was missing something. Something big.

They got ready to leave, and then Claire told us she was pregnant and they were moving to Cleveland where her boyfriend was from. She then did something that I didn't understand at the time but now… well I get it now. She told dad she was taking the Jeep. That he owed her and if he said a word she would go straight to the police. And then she and her boyfriend both drove away. I wish she would have gone to the police… if she knew what he was capable of… or maybe she just assumed that she was his only victim.

We all used to go to the same school that spring semester. Hunter was a bit like me, we only needed to read something once and we just got it. We saw this old movie on TV called Good Will Hunting and figured we were super smart like him. We competed in who could memorize things faster and made plans about how we were going to ace all the tests and get into university, move to New York and be rich. 

We helped Cynthia with her homework, and sometimes did it for her a little bit. She had some learning problems and had missed a lot of school before, but if we helped her with the reading part she was quick to pick it up and had an amazing memory and conversation skills. I think if she gets better at reading she can do anything she wants… except math maybe, she kind of sucks at math.

We were the new kids in school and had that in common besides living together on the farm and dealing with Jack’s temper. Being the new kid at school is tough enough and for them it was like the 7th or something time they had to change schools so they didn't really bother making friends. 

I wasn't trying too hard to make friends either, I guess felt a bit ostracized, the kids out here are different from my friends in the city. I was probably my own fault too. I was on the football team the first semester, but quit going to practices after some time for a few different reasons. I got into fights with the captain of the team when he called me a faggot just because I didn’t give bother answering him him when he asked me which one of the cheerleaders I wanted him to set me up with for a blowjob. Chris Hobbs. The name even screams that he's a bully. The coach somehow freaked me out too. It was just a feeling I had and I really didn’t get it, but I sure would find out later. The main reason I quit though was that the football practices were in the afternoon and I was just too tired because I was getting up so early. And besides, I didn’t want anyone to see the bruises Jack gave me. 

So it was kind of natural that when Hunter and Cynthia came  to the farm I kind of gave up on the local kids and started hanging out with them at school instead. I sometimes daydream about if I had continued on the football team and then gotten popular and then maybe someone would know and come help us. Or at least someone would have noticed when we stopped coming. I've thought so much about what I could have done differently.

It was really us kids who took care of the farm. It was a lot of work but we woke up at 5 o'clock each morning, so work would be finished before we went to school. Some of it was easy, there was a milking robot and the cows came to it themselves. But we had to maintain it and make sure everything was super clean or else the milktruck driver would give us warnings and penalties. We made sure they had enough food and called the vet if needed. The pigs were harder, their sty was always a mess and they were lazy to move when we needed to clean it. I loved the little calves and piglets and it was a bit sad to see them leave. Yes, I'm a city kid at heart. So sue me. On that topic the thing that I disliked the most was slaughtering the chicken. Granddad showed me how to do it and he took care of it until he got sick and then I was supposed to take over. I hated it. Thankfully Hunter and Cynthia offered themselves for the job when they arrived. Hunter can be such a weirdo sometimes. He literally likes it, I think, and where as I just want to scream when the body runs or flies away while the head still clucks after it's chopped off, he just thinks it's dead funny, pun intended. And I don't like the smell when pulling out the feathers. Cynthia's tiny nimble fingers are stronger than they look and she defeathers chicken like she's never done anything else.

We let Cynthia sleep in the morning. She’s not built for heavy lifting and also Joan is constantly at her neck at night making her help with cooking and doing the dishes after dinner because that's the woman's job. 

Us three stayed out of Jack’s way and did our best with the farm work and keeping the house clean so that we wouldn’t be yelled at by Joan. It was still good sometimes, it’s fun having such good playmates my own age around and we've always stuck together like glue, after the first few weird days of getting used to each other anyway. We have a warning system if one of the grownups is close, make use of sign language, other gestures, code words,  whistling and making small noises. We never left Janet out, she was part of the team and she’s the one who taught us sign language. 

Last August when school was about to start I pointed out to Joan that we were going to need new clothes for school. She said she’d deal with Jack. That night at dinner she told him we needed to look presentable at school, so people wouldn’t think poorly of her and she was going shopping the next day. Jack was very quiet as if he hadn’t heard. 

“It’s gonna be so much fun starting school again, I look forward to...” Cynthia said in her cheerful way but she wasn’t able to finish her sentence because Jack stood up and flipped over the dining room table. Food and tableware went flying as we all scrambled to get away from him. Janet cried, Mum was yelling, it appeared she was more worried about the broken tableware than how we were feeling.

“Do you think I’m made of money?  Hmm…? Here I am without a job spending every last dime on feeding you useless parasites. It’s a bloody waste of time and money, it’s time you quit that nonsense school and start working like normal people”

I  was hurt and confused. It's enough pressure being the son of the caretakers in a house with two foster kids. Jack has always had a temper and if I forget to be perfect for just a minute he's very quick to let me know. So I pretend to be cool, I always want everyone to think I'm in control. It's a miracle really that all the other kids look at me as their leader. I didn’t say anything, just looked apologetically at Hunter and Cynthia and made the cow sign at them and then fled the scene. They both soon came and found me were I was hiding with the cows.

We didn't go back inside until much later. Jack, Joan and Janet had gone to bed but the dining room was still a mess, and it looked like they had taken their fight further because there were other broken items than what we had used for dinner. We cleaned it up before we went to bed. I found it hard to sleep that night. I'd somehow just always assumed everybody's basic needs like that were covered by the money my parents got each month from the foster care system. Maybe he was forgetting how much he was spending on booze and gambling. Maybe if I worked even harder and made the farm perfect Jack would leave us alone. Maybe I should help mom more too. Maybe she just needed a vacation… or I could sell the watch Grandfather left me and buy something nice for it… 

Yeah. I still cared about my mother back then.

So, we quit going to school. I kept waiting for someone from school to come ask about us but no one seemed to think it strange. In fact no one has been here for evaluating us for months now. It’s really strange. When Hunter and Cynthia first came here, someone would come at least once a month to make sure we were all happy and healthy and I guess we were, even though things haven’t really been alright since my grandpa died. 

The silver lining was that now that we weren’t going to school anymore we actually had time and energy to finish all of our chores and didn’t have to stay up half the night any more. The farm started to look much better, we painted the houses, gave the terrace a clean and a few rounds of wood oil and took the weed burner to every plant that dared to grow without permission. We fixed up the inside parts of the outhouses too. When the fall came, we removed all leaves and it looked great. Most of the time Jack left us alone. I figured it was going to be alright. Damn was I wrong. 

In November my parents took in two more kids,  a boy Jason our age and a girl Kira a year younger than the rest of us. The new priest brought them, I noticed he was very handsome. He's way older, must be like 30 but his face looks kind, especially his eyes but more importantly, I found myself staring at his ass a little bit. Maybe Chris Hobbs was right. Apparently, both Kira and Jason had been homeless and my mum's church had rescued them off the streets because it was getting colder, and now they would be coming here for temporary care until a better solution was found. They chose our farm because my mother was such an outstanding charity worker, because it was such a nice clean and loving Cristian home. Imagine that. 

It was starting to get a bit crowded, Kira shared a room with Cynthia, and Jason and Hunter bunked together. They knew each other from before when they were on the streets. I still had a single, it made me feel a bit weird, I really didn't want them to think that like… because I was the son I was getting special treatment, so kind of turned my room into our hangout place, since it had a couch and a TV. Janet also had a single but she always had her own room and it wouldn't work to have her share. It also always smells kind of bad in there because she uses a diaper and sometimes forgets to throw them out. 

Kira and Jason both suffered a bit of asthma especially on cold days, so we let them sleep in the morning but they helped out a lot anyway other parts of the day. 

One evening a man came by and my father and he argued about money. I was in my room and I could hear them through my open window. “If you can’t come up with the money before next week we’ll have to solve it another way.”

My parents were drunk every night and honestly my mom was sipping something during the day too. She also had pills that the doctor gave her for back pain. Her back pain was so bad that she didn't want to risk getting worse with working in the house. She wanted the girls to do it, because it was the woman's job to keep the home tidy, but seriously, there was no way we would just sit and watch them clean, and anyway it wasn't as if we enjoyed sitting with Jack watching TV or hanging in our rooms knowing they were working. I stole one of her pills once to give to Cynthia because she had such bad cramps. It made her sleep for hours. I don't know how mom can take that many and still be able to get dressed very nicely and go to church, which she does almost every day. 

There was no dinner unless we cooked. I didn’t mind that though, but the problem was that sometimes they didn’t really go grocery shopping. In the fall we had apples, corn and potatoes and some other fruit and vegetables we’d grown ourselves. We ate all the chicken and now we only have a few hens left and we need those for eggs. There is plenty of milk and still some meat in the freezer. 

Sometime late November I started noticing that my Janet wasn’t so playful anymore. Jack had started taking her to some school for people like her a few times a week. I asked him why he was making her go if she didn’t like it, and all he said was “Mind your own business, boy!” That was followed with a slap across my face and a bloody nose so I didn’t ask again. 

A few weeks after that Janet went to an advent getaway for disabled people. My parents both got very drunk when Jack came back from driving her there. She’d been gone for a week or so when they told us she’d had a bad seizure and died in the hospital. They didn't let us go to the funeral. It made me really sad but if I’d said something… well I didn’t want to risk it. After Christmas when I went with my mother to grandma and grandpa’s graves to tidy and remove the decorations I asked her why there was no cross for Janet, she didn’t answer. 

Some time after that Jason went to visit an aunt he said he had no idea he had. My father took him to meet her. He came home alone. He told us she would be taking him to live with her in Florida. We found it strange that he didn’t say goodbye. He had left behind his stuff but my father said she was rich and would get him new stuff. We didn’t see him again. I still had no clue what was going on. 

They started coming in February. The customers. Jack said if we wanted to eat we better pull our own weight. We got sent with them to a room in the basement. At first they wanted to take pictures and videos of us naked, but soon that changed. I hate what they do to me, I try not to think about it, most of them are not so bad, Mr. Swanson comes a couple of times a week, he’s kind to me and brings me stuff I need such as cigarettes and drugs. The painkillers I’ve been giving Justin are from him. He works in a pharmacy and what he brings is always some high quality shit. I’ve told him that Justin is allergic to tylenol and codeine and penicillin but he brought something that’s ok for him to take.

Last time he was here was the night before yesterday, I treated him like literal filth. He doesn’t deserve it. He is a very kind man… I know he’s been protecting Justin. I’m such a shit. My old football coach is a regular too. Sleeze bastard. Tiny dick. He likes to take me and tell me I'm a good for nothing slut. I guess I am. 

But some guys like to hurt us… sometimes… well, like I already said; I try not to think about it. Jack has made it clear to us that if anyone tries to leave he’d  kill everyone. Why haven’t we called for help one could ask. The landline has been dead for months and Jack and Joan keep their phones locked at all times. And yes, I know 911 can be called with a locked phone. I have a brain. But some of the guys who come here are policemen. Jack has made sure to tell us that they will know immediately if someone squeaks. And he says there are men guarding the driveway. It’s like that. There is no way out. 

After Justin came here my new goal in life became to keep him away from the basement. I taught him everything I could think of at the stables and made him work really hard. I just thought that if I could keep “them” away from Justin everything would be alright. But I was going to fail at that. 

The first time he was sent to the basement I’d really tried to stop them but I failed. I begged Jack to let me go instead but he dragged me into the barn where he proceeded to beat me like a dog. I ended up with a broken arm and some pretty bad bruising all over. My mother took me to a hospital in West Virginia to try to hide it from family services. She told me that if I’d say anything it would be the end of Justin. That worked. I kept my mouth shut and no one came to help us... and I… I had failed. Failed him. My Sunshine.

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