Chapter 50. Cruel Childhood

Little Nathaniel watched his parents fight every day and watched his mother cry every time his father was done shouting and hitting her. But every single time she forced herself to stop crying, picked him up, rocked him, and sang sweet songs in their mother tongue to calm his scared little heart. He loved his mother, to him she was the strongest woman alive. His experience growing up in a distraught, dysfunctional home made his mind mature even faster than his body. He was a beautiful boy, his father’s genes were strong in him, and his mother’s strength coursed through his veins. Even though he spent nights crying he woke up every day vowing to one day make his mother smile again. To him, no woman could ever be like his mother.

To him, his mother could do no wrong which was why when he fell under the cruel hand of measles at age 7 he didn’t blame her when she turned to the streets to get the money needed for his treatment. If it was the first time Anja Schmidt had ever had to