28 January 2026, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2997: contemporary

Ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow was all but perfect as a grandchild, obedient, thoughtful, caring, and mature far beyond his years. But, how he got there meant he needed major support, just like equally almost-perfect eleven-year-old Eleanor.

“When you are trying to keep your family together as best you can from a good foster care situation and you feel more responsible than your own parents, and you're seven, that's going to take support,” Andrew's last foster father John Red-Eagle said to Capt. R.E. Ludlow about it when describing how seven-year-old Andrew would be calling the places where his siblings were every day to make sure they were as good as possible, and how Andrew knew before anyone else that George and Amanda were being severely neglected. He and by extension the Red-Eagles were their lifeline while Capt. Ludlow was on his last deployment, and the Red-Eagles' documentation of all that was going on helped to put the neglectors out of the foster care business.

“Andrew has been on this 9-2-2 Where We Call You thing for three years – he just didn't have a name for it at seven and eight years old,” Mrs. Aurora Red-Eagle said.

Capt. Ludlow eventually got custody of and then adopted all his grandchildren, and Andrew liked that Mr. and Mrs. Red-Eagle still called every week to see how he was. What he didn't know was how much the Red-Eagles and his grandfather talked about the good and bad of Andrew's precocious sense of and capacity for big-time responsibilities, and about needing to help Andrew just be a kid, with a kid's emotions about losing parents that he never really had.

So: on this particular day, Capt. Ludlow had a great deal of final paperwork to review on the drafts of the sale of the Ludlow Bubbly and Ludlow Historical Soda Company that had once been the Ludlow Winery, but he was in the habit of walking around and putting an eye on each of his grandchildren that was not known to be inside the Lee or Trent houses, and so he saw Andrew, looking quite sad and struggling to hold his tears back as he came toward the Ludlow house.

The captain changed direction instantly, meeting Andrew with open arms, and just picking him up and taking him for an instant walk – and Andrew, not wanting to burden his friends at the Trent house with his sadness, thanked his grandfather and then started bawling like the little orphan boy he actually was.

“It's a lot,” Capt. Ludlow said tenderly to him when he calmed down and they were sitting in a sunny place in a fallow field somewhere off by themselves in Tinyville, VA.

“It really is, and people just don't get it,” Andrew said. “Velma and Milton didn't say anything mean, but they take their dad for granted, and they just don't get that you can't do that!”

“That's a trigger for you, Andrew,” Capt. Ludlow said. “I probably would react the same way if folks started taking their children for granted in front of me – we just know better.”

“Yeah!” Andrew said. “It's like, do people not know that people can just go – on some foolishness? It's crazy!”

“It is, Andrew,” Capt. Ludlow said. “I think about it every day.”

“It's just not right,” Andrew said, and started crying again.

“And it never will be, and we have to go on anyway,” Capt. Ludlow said, “but we are not getting on any foolishness, and we are going together as long as possible.”

“Yeah!” Andrew said. “Yeah!”

He cried for a little while longer, but at last settled into peace in his grandfather's arms.

“So then, how do we handle when other people have their parents, or their kids, and don't understand?” Capt. Ludlow said. “In the first place, that can make us feel a lot of different ways … I remember that I was very envious when we moved next to the Trents, because Sgt. Trent is an older contemporary to your parents, and I didn't feel like it was fair that their kids had their parents and you didn't.”

“I didn't feel jealous of Velma and Milton,” Andrew said, “because I don't feel like I am missing anything – Eleanor and I are always saying you and Grandma were always our real parents. But I feel real sad and angry – my biological parents existed, but they never cared enough about us. It just hurts. I come from people who loved their drugs more than anything and it just makes me mad that they did that and in makes me mad at the people who sell drugs to kids so they grow up and do this stuff to their kids, and I really want Velma and Milton to learn to really love their parents because their parents are actually real parents and don't need to be taken for granted.”

“Well, you are already ahead of me, because I just had to sit myself down with the Lord and get my entire life together about my jealousy to get over it,” Capt. Ludlow said. “In your case, maybe we can talk with the Lord and our family therapist about how to use the concern you have for other kids to help them.”

“Oh, I already have a plan,” Andrew said. “I've been talking to Vertran about his Tell Us a Little Bit More About That show to get ideas, so, what I'm going to do when I get older is to start helping kids tell their stories so grown people can understand just how bad it is for kids when they don't get over their addictions for their kids, and why we gotta really look at everybody involved with drugs – I found out that although folks like the Trents get arrested more for drugs, Black people don't make guns, don't grow cocaine, or don't own the ways that the stuff comes into the country. There's a lot of other people involved, and we need to Pokemon them up – gotta catch 'em all. And then there's the pharmaceutical companies, and the stuff they make it easy to get to the street. There's a lot, Papa. It's a lot.”

“It is,” Capt. Ludlow said. “A lot of adults have not done that much homework.”

“A lot of adults don't get it, but I do,” Andrew said. “We do.”

“Yes, indeed,” Capt. Ludlow said. “So, in addition to this plan for other people, what do you want to do for yourself?”

“I haven't really thought about that part since I was six years old and realized my unreal parents were unreal, and they weren't coming to get me, George, Amanda, or Grayson. I knew you and Grandma would, but I needed to find a way to make sure George, Amanda, and Grayson were going to make it.”

“Well, that was then,” Capt. Ludlow said. “Grandma and I, with your big Lee cousins as backup, are all going to make sure you all make it, so now that you do have time, what do you want to do for yourself?”

Andrew heaved a huge sigh.

“Can we just sit here in the sun?” he said.

“All of my paperwork will wait – let me call Grandma and let her know we are going to be here for a bit longer,” Capt. Ludlow said.

So they just sat there, and Andrew at last completely relaxed and went to sleep in his grandfather's arms. Capt. Ludlow eventually carried him home, put him on the sofa in a sunbeam, tidied up all his paperwork and put it away, and positioned himself on the sofa by his grandson. It was not long before nine-year-old George and seven-year-old Amanda, drawn by the combined relaxed presence of two of three of their most devoted protectors, came and got a spot near both of them and went to sleep. Six-year-old Grayson seemed oblivious to this, being immersed in the Lego pile, but Capt. Ludlow knew Grayson had observed everything that was going on, and would come get his personal time later.