A Mother's Love

Heaven's Lullaby

A bottle shattered against the body of a young boy. It's shards digging into his skin, and the child wailed at the sudden pain.
"Shut yer ass up, boy!" yelled the man that threw the glass bottle at his son.

Another voice chimed up, "Dario, what on earth are you doing?!" Ronnie ran up to her son, and began to assess his injuries whilst trying to calm his tears.

"The lil' shit told me I waste all the money on booze! Who the hell do he think he is?! I'm the man of this fucking household, so I decide how the fucking money is spent." Dario spat out. He was clearly drunk off his ass, but no one present dared to call him out on it.

Picking up the another bottle of booze off a table, Dario flung his head back for a long drink and hobbled off to his bedroom.

Once he was gone, Ronnie looked back at her four year old son. The boy was crying as quietly as he could while clutching his mother's dress in an iron grip. Ronnie gently stroked the soft blond hair on his head, doing her best to calm her child.

"Dio, it's going to be alright my darling, you'll be ok..." She cooed. His sobs slowed and he looked up at her with wet, amber colored eyes.

"I didn't *hic* I didn't mean to make him *hic* mad." He whimpered. "I just asked him to *hic* to drink less..." He buried his face into his mother's chest and continued to cry. Ronnie was at a lost for words. How could she possibly explain to her young son why Dario reacted so violently to his innocent request?

Ronnie lifted Dio up and sat him down on one the chairs near their small wood stove. "Let's get you cleaned up." She exited the room to get what little they had to treat all of Dio's cuts. Returning with a small basin of warm water, a cloth, and strips of fabric from Dio's old clothes that he long outgrew.

She started by gently removing any bits of glass embedded into his skin. He would often yelp or whimper when his mother would pull one out, and each time Ronnie would shoosh him gently while giving him soft words of comfort.

Once she was confident that there was no glass remaining in her son's skin, she began to use the cloth diped in warm water to clean his wounds. Dio hissed at the stinging, but otherwise made no attempts to stop her. Ronnie then used the strips of old cloth to make make shift bandages for the deeper cuts, offering small kisses to each one after she applied them.

"There." She said sweetly. "Do you feel better now my darling?" Dio gave her a small smile and nodded. Returning his smile, Ronnie once again lifted Dio up. She now sat in the chair with Dio sitting on her lap. Dio leaned against her and began to slowly close his eyes, feeling safe in his mother's embrace.

Ronnie noticed him drifting off, and decided to sing him his favorite lullaby.

Spiral Staircase
Rhinoceros Beetle
Ruins Street
Fig Tart
Rhinoceros Beetle
Via Dolorosa
Rhinoceros Beetle
Singularity Point
Giotto
Angel
Hydrangea
Rhinoceros Beetle
Singularity Point
Secret Emporer

The words themselves where pure nonsense to Ronnie, but the calming affect it had on her son is what gave them their value to her. She can't remember how she came across this lullaby, but after seeing Dio's serene expression everytime she sings it, she no longer questions it. Holding her sleeping child, Ronnie herself is filled with a sense of calm, slowly drifting off into sleep as well.