Rowyn's Lullaby

Chapter One: In the Distance, I Heard a Child's Soft Cry

I remember resting on the sofa when Arabella called me on that hazy summer afternoon. I can still picture the evening sun beginning to drift behind the line of trees in the backyard outside of my window. I had spent most of the evening prior to her call still fantasizing about him while I gazed through the window. Two months before, I was wrapped in his arms at that exact time in the day.

The distant chime of the phone shifted me from my daydreams. When I lifted the receiver to my ear and heard her trembling words flow through, the floor twisted beneath my feet. I began rocking on the floor, holding my knees in tightly, and asking her if it was really him that they found hanging from the rafters of a basement.

During the week preceding the funeral, the entire town lapsed into a deafening silence. My neighbors, who had usually walked outside by five in the morning to pick up their papers, were frozen with blue faces at their windows. When they saw my face in my own window, they jerked the blinds down and returned to their own private mourning. My mom did not leave for work the next morning. She called in "sick," and no one questioned because they already knew why Mrs. Hensley developed a chronic illness.

She would not even look at me or answer my questions. She remained on the couch with her chin propped up by her fragile hands; her thoughts reflected this sudden but somehow expected suicide. Her stare, so unforgettable, remained forwards in an impermeable gaze at the flashing of the television lights in the dark living room. The phone never stopped ringing the next morning, and while she was usually pushing others down to find out who was on the other side, she let in chime until she yanked the cord from the wall and went back to the television.

There was no going to visit the supermarket after work for her or for me. My dad, who had never done more than picking up a pack of beer on the way home, found himself on the frontlines that evening. He fumbled with an explanation about why dinner was not going to be the requested items on the grocery list but a half decent plate of fast food for the three of us to try to eat together. My mom picked at the food for a moment before reluctantly crawling back behind her bedroom door and refusing the rest of her dinner. My dad had similar luck with me as I too hated the thought of enjoying something ever again.

My two closest friends, Carter and Arabella came to visit a couple of days later. I tried to get to the door before my mom, but she moved swiftly and directly like a black cat that protects her dying kittens. She denied their requests to talk to me, to talk with supervision, to wave hello, or to even try to help. She threatened to call their mothers to tell them they should not sneak out and if they tried to sneak around to see me, they would not experience the senior year they were looking forward to.

Going to the funeral was no easy feat because we had no business being there. He was not a relative, hardly a close friend of the family. He was more of a familiar acquaintance and was with everyone in the small town. He had children on little league teams, volunteer teams he coached, or other small efforts to help even the smallest in society. His charm reeled everyone into his web, but only one small insect became his victim, and she could never feel closure again unless she saw him really buried.

A shallow breath escaped my lips when they lowered his casket into the ground. Surreal could not describe how we all felt, especially how I felt. One moment, he was tangible, and I could detect him in the crowd, let him pick my hand up out of my coat, and stroll through the people like we were one of them. In an instant, his physical body had vaporized from our world and left me empty. I tried to refrain from thinking about him gradually decaying six feet under.

I clutched the sleeve of Carter's linen shirt when the burial service was coming to an end. He wrapped his other arm around my shoulders, and his words, muffled in my hair, seemed like little consolation. From the burial ground to the place we decided to eat for dinner, my only recollection was trying to not cry in between locations. I remember passing the church again, the school, and the gas station where he would wave at me from the driver's side of his maroon station wagon.

"How are you and your family doing?" asked a mother of one of the students in my class. I stared back at her, expressionless. People did not understand what was really conflicting and burning inside me when he died, and his actions not only wounded me but wounded the rest of us too. I had to lie, again, about how I felt. He was a rapist after all, and I could not accept that about someone who was so nice to me.

"Fine," I finally replied and turned my head back to the table to stare down at my reflection in the glass. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her pay at the cash register and leave. I gritted my teeth even harder; It was obvious she already knew what she wanted to know.

"Rowyn," whispered Arabella as she gently placed her hand on my upper arm.

I imagined my eyes were on fire when I asked, "What?"

She leaned away, her eyes wide with shock. She timidly asked, "Did she know about you and-?"

I nodded my head and sighed. "She knows more than the fact that he killed himself. She knows the reason. Everyone does." I replied. 

Carter interjected, "It happened, and everyone is trying to make it their business too. Rowyn, you know that they're only keeping it up because their lives are dull and meaningless."

Carter was right. Nothing like our affair had ever happened in this quaint community. Everyone followed the rigid, unspoken rules of staying in one relationship, regardless if they were happy or not. It was a rare occurrence for a child to have sex with an adult. A man would have to be foreign to try and lay their hands on a child. However, the men could still lustfully set their eyes on the blossoming young girls.

From the time they were swaddled in their mother's arms, most of the children in Evanstown had their entire lifespans memorized by the older people. The children were watched by the elders of the community. I remember having old women and men approach me after church and tell me how much I had grown up. Glimmers of pride and joy reflected from the woman's eyes while the man's eyes became glazed over with desire. He would see the peaches developing each week underneath the girl's shrinking shirts. He would imagine how smooth her skin would feel when he could remove her bra if he ever got the chance. The wives would pretend not to notice the carelessness of their husbands at neighborhood socials or at Sunday luncheons.

"When we go back to school," Arabella said with a hint of sadness in her voice. "We have to promise to not let anything happen to each other."

Carter was playing with the saltshaker but stopped to agree with her. "We can't allow last year to happen again."

I still had one year of high school remaining in Evanstown. I had to bear the torture of high school for only a year; I told myself. The animosity towards him for not being there physically with me was growing while he was enjoying watching over me from heaven, or hell. Wherever God sees men like him fit to be.