You who have read Carnival Girl know that Michael was my youngest brother, born when I was thirteen.
Sonja, Carmen, and Josefa around the time Michael was one year old.
My mother was not happy to be expecting again, but we teenage girls loved the baby. Not long after he was born we took over his care. We changed his diapers, fed and washed him (bathing was out of the question in our cramped caravan home), and we played with him. Mutti mainly ignored him.
Michael was one year old when I met the LDS missionaries, and two when I got permission to be baptized. He was going on three when the larger part of our family left the carnival circuit.
Michael at two years of age.
Michael grew up in an apartment and not in a caravan. But sadly, we sisters who cared for him left home when he was still very small. By the time Micheal was seven, Carmen was married, I was on a mission, and Josefa had gone to Paris to learn French and be a nanny.
Little Eva and Michael were left with Mutti. Eva, seven years older than our youngest brother, coped with things the best she could and left home as soon as possible. By the time he was eleven, Michael was alone with Mutti.
No one knows for sure, but we sisters strongly suspect that one of our mother's boyfriends molested Michael at a very young age.
In any case, Michael started taking drugs when he was about thirteen, and by the time he was in his late teens, was so addicted that we girls could not help him.
I had immigrated to the US by that time, and could only pray for him.
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