Mandy World

Perfect in purple

Created on Midjourney

In Mandy World everything was beautiful and perfect. It was also purple—very purple. Purple was Mandy’s favorite color. Today, she set out her perfect purple mocha set and picked purple flowers for her table. She laid everything out just so and waited for Billy to arrive.

As she waited, she breathed in the heavenly scent of the hot chocolate—Billy’s favorite—she had poured into the mocha cups. She brought a flower to her nose and sniffed, nearly sneezing but laughing instead.

She waited and waited. But no matter how hard she tried, Mandy couldn’t conjure a vision of her brother. Not since he had been moved to a new foster home without her. Not since she had been left behind.

A single tear trickled down Mandy’s face as she opened her eyes to the empty back yard of her foster family’s rundown house. A few tufts of dead grass clung to the dry, cracked dirt. How could the agency have moved Billy and not her? Didn’t she deserve to be in a nice home too?

The lady who had come to take them away after Mama had gone to jail had said they’d stay together. She had lied. Last week she had come again to the foster home and taken Billy away, leaving Mandy alone with the Bensons.

The Bensons weren’t mean—just poor. Mandy was used to poor, but Billy had always been there. They would imagine beautiful tea parties and feasts fit for kings and queens together. Now Mandy was left to imagine on her own.

Sighing, she closed her eyes, recreating Mandy World. Maybe this time Billy would come.

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This story was suggested by the image. I first thought of a little girl imagining a purple world. How I got to a foster child separated from her brother, I don’t know. It just came as I typed.

My mother’s youngest sister grew up in an orphanage. She was a sister by choice. My grandmother worked at the orphanage and my aunt, as a child, would visit for Christmas and other holidays, often staying with my aunt’s family, sometimes with my grandmother.

Lavaughne was never formally adopted or even placed in a foster home. (The reasons behind this aren’t mine to share, but it was through no fault of hers.) When she aged out of the system, she simply became “Aunt Lavaughne” to us kids, though she isn’t that much older than my oldest brother.

I’m not sure how that specifically ties in with this story, but it’s a bit of family history that perhaps vaguely relates. I hope you enjoyed the story, though it’s sad. I’m hoping for a happy resolution with Mandy reunited with her brother.

Christmas is coming up quickly. If you’re still pondering a gift for a reader, consider gifting them a year’s subscription to Eclectic Ink, so they can enjoy my stories too!