And I Will Sing a Lullaby
I am a simple man; always have been. When I was younger, I knew I wanted to be a cop. Growing up in a small logging town doesn't leave many options, but I like the think I'd choose the same path regardless of my hometown. I was a quiet kid, an only child, and never one to wear my heart on my sleeve. Some saw me as shy, others as awkward. Maybe I was. I was content within myself, happy to help my mother around our little blue house. Then…I met her.
I remember the day. It was a Wednesday during our senior year. I remember the time. It was just before lunch. I even remember what she was wearing. The thought of that denim skirt and knee-high moccasin boots still makes me smile. What I can't remember, though, is what she said to me to make me fall completely head over heels in love with her. Whether it was time's doing or just my smitten state, my memory of how we met fails me. All I know is that I woke up one day and Renee was my world. I saw her before school, at school, and after school. We were together on the weekends and even spent one Christmas wrapped in an old flannel blanket together, stargazing from a cliff in La Push. She was erratic and harebrained. I was soft-spoken and focused. Together, we felt like one single entity and I was sure this was it for me.
She was not from my town of 3,000 and always longed to return to the big city. I fooled myself into thinking she would someday realize how happy she could be in Forks. Immediately after graduation from high school, we were married and a second later, she was pregnant. I enrolled in the police academy and my mother, bless her heart, moved into a smaller apartment and left us the little blue house. The only thing missing from my dream life was a picket fence.
She painted the kitchen a god-awful sunshine yellow one afternoon. I came home and found her covered in paint, her swollen belly straining against the fabric of her overalls. She had never looked more beautiful. She said the house was too dark, too "stuck in the times," and bright colors were the only solution. I laughed and ducked my head as she swatted me with a paintbrush. She rambled on and on about the color palette she had selected for the remaining rooms and I said nothing, for just the smile on her face was enough to light up the house for me.
The kitchen was as far as she got.
Our beautiful daughter was born not long after. Until that point, I thought that marrying Renee was the highlight of my existence. I'm not ashamed to admit that the moment I set eyes on my squirming bundle of a baby, she was the only thing that existed to me. I don't even remember anyone handing her over to me and guiding me to a nearby armchair. All I knew was the weight of her body in my arms, the smell of her skin against my gruff cheek, the wide and dark eyes that stared up at me, the wisps of hair that reminded me of the earth, the shocks of awe and love and happiness that coursed through me as surely as the blood in my veins.
At one point soon after her birth, I looked up to Renee and whispered, "We have to be the luckiest damn parents on this green earth." She simply nodded and settled against her pillows, quick to succumb to sleep's beckoning call as I remained captivated by our baby girl. Minutes blurred into days and before I knew it, my little Isabella was enjoying her first autumn night on our tiny front porch with just me and the soft glow of the moon above us as I sang to her in my deep, off-key voice. That became a routine for us; our evenings were spent breathing in the cool, clean night air the Olympic peninsula had to offer while Renee painted or wrote her novel of the month or rearranged furniture to "allow for better energy flow."
How I didn't see her sadness, her longing for more, I'll never know. When I awoke to an empty bed and a note stuck to one of the ungodly yellow cabinets, I was more angry than shocked. Our Bella was barely a year old, barely beginning to walk without falling on her diapered bottom, barely forming her coos and babbles into coherent words. Renee claimed that she just wasn't cut out for this life, that all the love in the world couldn't calm her restless spirit. What she really meant, I know now, is that she never intended to settle down with me, with this town, with anything that would tie her to one place. I know that now and I accept it, even if my Bella won't. She still throws away the birthday card Renee manages to send every year.
Despite my tears, anger and resentment, life went on. Bells went from walking to running in a blink of an eye. Her babbling grew into words and sentences and songs. Everything she touched transformed into something magical. Sunflowers we planted during the wrong season still seemed to bloom. Colors she chose to paint rooms with, colors that made me grimace as the kid in the hardware store mixed them, somehow came together and brightened our little house in a way that Renee was never able to. Ingredients that I'd never heard of and had to drive to Port Angeles to even find miraculously created a dish that had me begging for seconds. That's just how Bella was. Everything was better, brighter and happier with her around.
Another blink of the eyes and there she was, nervously pacing in front of the living room door while I meticulously cleaned my hunting rifle. A huff and a roll of the eyes told me that I may be going overboard but dammit, this was her first date! As much as I hated to admit it, my Bells was as beautiful and captivating as her mother had been. Unlike Renee, however, Bella had a quiet way about her. She took in the world around her from behind the safety of a book, her eyes dark and expressive. On the rare occasions that she allowed her temper to flare, I saw more of her mother in her than ever before. I embraced it more as time went on, knowing Renee was a part of her whether we liked it or not.
A father's worst fear is losing his little girl to another man. That night, with a rifle in one hand and a can of beer in the other, I knew it had happened. She threw that old, wooden door open and I swear her smile could light the entire town of Forks. From that moment on, I shared my little girl with a green-eyed, bronze-haired boy from the outskirts of town. When he moved, she moved like their bodies were pieces of each other. The only thing that soothed the pain of knowing my baby girl had grown up was the love I saw, without a doubt, shining from that boy's eyes.
Yet another blink and here we were, our house a chaotic mess of tulle and ribbon and invitations and wedding magazines. How did this happen? I look across the table, a smile tugging at the lips buried beneath my dark mustache. Her lower lip was trapped between her teeth as she stared at the complicated seating chart before her. She tugged at a lock of her long, chestnut tresses and sighed softly. Without saying a word, I reached over and slid the chart to my side of the table. Within minutes, I had rearranged the remaining guests into a seating arrangement and handed the completed chart back to her. She looked between the paper and my smug grin with a look of shock upon her face. Her shock became my own when she suddenly burst into tears and threw herself around the table and into my lap.
Through her sobs and hiccups, I heard everything she was feeling and afraid to put into words. Fear of growing up, taking this next step into adulthood and leaving a childhood behind. Happiness for having found her Edward, for knowing this was the only person she would ever love this way. Anxiety over what life would be like once she was named Mrs. Cullen, once her room was no longer above the kitchen of her childhood home, once she lived with a man other than her quiet cop of a father. Insecurity about whether she'd be a good wife, whether she'd trip walking down the aisle, whether she'd turn out like her mother.
I simply held my little girl, rocking her as I had the first time I ever held her, and let her cry until her tears dried and the sobs softened to the gentle lull of sleep. Even as my leg began tingling in discomfort and my beer grew warm on the table, I held her and rocked her and reassured her through the tightening of my arms around her thin frame that everything was perfect, that she was perfect. When I tucked her into bed that night for the final time, my own tears made a quiet appearance and left marks across my skin as I tiptoed from her room and into my own.
Morning came, as it always does, and with it came a bright-eyed and flushed bride-to-be. Never before had she looked so radiant and full of life. Tradition be damned, I was the one to clasp the single strand of pearls around her neck as a photographer captured every moment in the background. Bella insisted that she did not want Renee to even know about the wedding, so I had to play the part of both parents... as I had for the past twenty years. As we stood behind the church doors, listening for the familiar strains of piano notes to reach our ears, she giggled and asked if her mascara had smeared. She looked beautiful and I told her so, causing more tears as her hand tightened around my arm and she buried her face against my suit jacket. It took a few moments of composure before the usher could open the doors for us. I glanced down at her, giving a wink as I led my little girl to her future.
He waited at the altar, his eyes finding hers the moment she stepped into the church. I could see his hands twitching in anticipation, undoubtedly longing to have the other half of his heart near him. Her steps quickened from her nervous shuffle until I was the one holding her back, laughing softly and reminding her to watch her step. Bella pulled towards him and away from me with each step and I swear, I felt a piece of my heart break each time. Before I knew it, I was the only remaining person in Forks, Washington with the last name of Swan. My little girl was no longer my own and I was torn between immeasurable happiness and a sadness that cut to my core.
Days melted into months, which somehow turned into years. I watched my baby girl graduate from college with honors alongside her beaming husband. I watched them depart for a summer-long backpacking trip through Europe and watered their plants while they were away. Before I knew it, I watched Bells hold up a grainy black-and-white photo that showed the barely discernible profile of a baby. A boy, she said, and they were going to name him Charlie because it only felt right that he share a name with the man that made her who she was. Ever see a grown man break down into a crying mess?
And here I sit, in this rickety rocking chair that is probably as old as this house, on this porch that was my haven for so many years, with another squirming bundle in my arms. The hair peeking from the blankets catches a stray moonbeam and shines like an aged penny. I peel back the soft flannel and my breath catches as wide, dark eyes stare up at me. Without hesitation, I tighten my hold on the baby as I begin to sing. I look up only when I feel her tiny hand against my arm, tears lighting her eyes as her soft voice melts into mine. I know the moment she leans forward to rest her chin against my shoulder that time has a funny way of coming full circle just when you need it to. Our voices fill the quiet night air, a single harmony amidst the crickets and gentle sway of the trees, and I close my eyes.
"Golden slumbers fill your eyes, smiles awake you when you rise. Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry and I will sing a lullaby…"