"Act in the valley so that you need not fear those who stand on the hill."
-Danish proverb
I look back on it now, and wonder, was I so lonely that I simply fell into his arms when he was prepared to receive me? I suppose, yes, I was. I was different among those who, anywhere else, would have been horrifically peculiar.
I remember how, after the baby was born, he would watch me sing to her, watch my lips as the words fell out of them. It was a prayer turned lullaby, sung to me first by my mother.
It began: "Take my hand and lead me,
Won't you be my guide?
I can see more clearly,
When you are by my side."
I sang airily, though not particularly well. He seemed to marvel at my voice, which I had always found to be average – utilized for my own enjoyment and no one else's. It amused me, the jaw-dropped expression that appeared on his face as I crooned to the baby.
I continued: "At night when I am resting,
Watch over me I pray.
I will walk with you again,
When darkness fades away."
Afterwards, sometimes, he would take her, too, and she would giggle and play with his fingers – dusty, sandy, and caked in whatever else he'd been prowling in out in the desert. I watched him, as he watched me when I handled the baby, though in an entirely separate manner. His hands and fingers – twitching with pent up violence – made me nervous. Though I never voiced my concern, I disliked the way he played with her, especially as she grew older. He would chase her, as she toddled unsteadily away, proclaiming his desire to eat her. When he caught her, he'd hold her over his head and say, "Oh, you fat. Oh, big, fat, and juicy!" before pretending to chew on her arms or stomach or toes.
It never failed to excite her – the chase, the eventual capture. She squirmed and writhed and shrieked in enjoyment. And it never ceased to bother me, to stop me in my tracks. I knew if she were any other child, this would not be a game.
I'm still not entirely sure why I was never killed, like all the others. It could have been several reasons, or all of them compounded together. I was not unlovely, however uncommon that is to say about yourself in all seriousness. But, honestly, more beautiful women than I have died by their hands. It may have been that I was pregnant, but, again, I've no concrete idea.
I was eighteen, nearing six months pregnant. The boyfriend who was the father had left to go to college, and I thought it was just The Worst Thing In The World. When my friends asked me to join them on a road trip to California, I jumped for the opportunity, though I knew it was hardly the responsible choice. I chose to for my own selfish reasons; to get away from my disappointed mother and stepfather, patronizing and belittling strangers, faux-friendly neighbors.
To say I was naïve would be giving me too much credit.
Perhaps I should have known I wouldn't enjoy the trip. My friends were too loud, too raucous. The heat pressed its belly up against the door – the atmosphere weighing heavily down on me, not unlike the baby, not unlike my swelling breasts. I lay down in the backseat, miserable and cramped for hours.
The boy driving, Peter, had a questionable sense of direction. We stopped, like all of the other victims, at the gas station for instructions. There was nothing that particularly caught my attention at the time. I saw the gas station attendant eyeing Isabelle's opal necklace and Christian's silver chain, and I assumed his pitying glance towards my enormous belly was just like any other. A pregnant eighteen-year-old, I'd not been so accustomed to pity since my father's death.
I wonder if, maybe, had he not seen the jewelry and Peter's considerably large wallet, would I have appealed to his better nature? Would he have let us pass?
Regardless, we wound up on the dirt road, unsuspecting, without reason to doubt his sincerity.