loml ~ Neil Perry

Prologue

Northern Delaware

"Father...?" Charlie Dalton whimpers, his suit only slightly too tight and his eyes welled with tears.

"Son." He sternly nods in Charlie's direction.

Lakyn Dalton, around a year younger sits pleasantly in her designated chair at the dining room table. Albeit a facade, she looked completely unaffected by the situation.

On the inside, she was falling apart.

She was her father's "little girl," his "little pumpkin," and now he's just abandoning ship.

She wonders what happened to the importance of family, and always being there for each other.

Then again, her family never felt much that way to begin with.

Charlie looks confidently into his father's eyes, silently pleading with him to re-think his tumultuous decision.

He wondered what would happen to their mother, where he would stand with school at Welton Academy, and why his sister seems as if she could care even less about what's happening.

Their mother, Mrs. Dalton stands behind her daughter, delicate hands placed on the cotton of her navy blouse covering her shoulders.

They wanted to cry. They wanted to roar and tell Mr. Dalton how badly this hurt, no matter if he planned to feed them money like dinner from wherever he was running off too.

Money doesn't buy happiness, and certainly not the good will of your family back.

They know Charlie doesn't understand, understand that they were taught to not react, because the tiniest tear drop trickling down either one of their cheeks, would be deemed an over reaction.

"What about Welton, father?" Charlie demands, slamming his fist onto the table, "I'm to be a doctor. I need this school."

"You low-down boy!" Their father booms, "you never listen. You will continue at Welton and I'll pay for your college too."

Lakyn sniffs from the corner, and her mother squeezes her shoulder affectionately.

A silent promise that they would cry together later, to keep from getting yelled at now.

"You will all be fine." Mr. Dalton moves towards the door, knowing that the moment he steps through the entry way, he'd be pulling the final straw out of the cup of sanity his family possessed, "the house is paid for, you'll get payments on the daily, it is my duty to provide for you guys and I intend to stay true to it."

"Father-" Charlie is silenced.

"You will still be richer than God." Mr Dalton scoffs, "no need to fret about losing your lavish little lives."

A beat of silence follows, the three marooned people in the room understanding that Mr. Dalton will never understand why they're pushing so hard against his persistence.

"You say it's your duty to provide for us." Lakyn's soft voice breaks through the quiet.

Mrs. Dalton squeezes her daughter's shoulder again, looking down at her almost uncomfortably.

Lakyn knows why, she knows that one word could set her father off, the memories of abuse and haunted melodies of pained cries floating about her mind.

For the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn't care.

She didn't care if he hit her, belittled her, screamed.