I.
Skittery's mother never loved him.
Ever since she realized she was pregnant she resented the little life growing inside her. It was never Skittery's fault. His mother was one of those people that could love only one person; themselves. She wanted to be the world's most famous vaudeville dancer and nobody was going to stand in her way, not even her own son.
Skittery was born on a chilly winter morning in the tenement house next to where his mother lived. There was a midwife living there, a robust black woman with shiny brown eyes and a laugh that everyone knew. Her name was Theodora, but everyone called her Tilly. She loved children, she had seven of her own, and she was proud to be the most famous midwife in all of Brooklyn. When she delivered Skittery that cold morning in December she marveled at his wide searching eyes. She told Skittery's mother that she had a beautiful dreamer on her hands. Tilly laughed her hearty laugh when Skittery's mother told her to keep him, she thought she was joking. Tilly never imagined that someone wouldn't love their own son.
Skittery remained unnamed until he was 16 months old, his mother simply called him 'the child'. Finally she decided that the child needed a name and so at 16 months old Skittery was finally named Finn after his mother's favorite fictional character, Huckleberry Finn. In fact 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' was the only book Skittery's mother ever read. Famous vaudeville dancers have no use for books. And so Skittery, when he was old enough to do so, vowed he would never, ever read 'Tom Sawyer', he would rather die.
Skittery tried everything to hate his mother. He thought of all the times she would put on her finest dress, which wasn't that fine, and sashay out the door to the dance hall on the next block, leaving a two-year old Skittery alone with a scrap of fabric as his only toy. He remembered the times she would wake up only to find it hadn't been a bad dream and that a five-year old Skittery really did exist, she'd be so angry she would knock him so hard across the head he saw stars for a week.
She never thought of how he might have felt. She laughed spitefully when he would cower away from her. She would cluck her tongue when he smiled at her. And she would turn away with a grimace on her pretty face when he told her that he loved her. No matter what he did he couldn't make her love him. And no matter what she did she couldn't make him hate her.
Most boys that end up in the Newsboys Lodging House are runaways or orphans. They have abusive fathers, dead mothers, drunk uncles, horrible grandparents. Most boys left their families behind, or had no families to begin with. Skittery wasn't like the rest of the boys at the lodging house, Skittery was the only boy whose mother ran away from him.
Skittery's mother never loved him, yet no mater what, he couldn't hate her.