Baby (freewrite)

I loved you with all my heart.

He held the child in his arms throughout the funeral and through the funeral that followed. And the only thing Rowan could think of, as he stood there and watched as his friends and his close ones fell dead to the ground, was how graceful the little boy sat in his arms, so perfect, more like a porcelain doll than a real kid.
Rowan never liked kids, so he was quite angry when he found himself sole guardian of this little, tiny child that now rested in his arms, so perfect and so very alone.
What are we going to do, little monster? He wondered and for a mere second, he forgot about all his troubles and of all the people that would be sleeping deep underground that night. No, it wasn't some paternal feeling that dawned on him or some warm realization that he should find good in this baby. No, Rowan was a bad man and he knew it, he was deeply aware that it had been his actions – and his alone – that led to his girlfriend's death.
Not that he'd killed her. Rowan would never kill anyone, but he hadn't cared either, through all her screams and her muted pleas of help, he'd been happy to ignore her, to close his eyes and shush her whenever she tried to speak. It was never the right time and then, there was no time at all and now Rowan felt the slightest trace of remorse for not having ears to hear. He found himself pitying his girlfriend, whom he hadn't loved, but whom he hadn't been able to let go, either.
And now, she'd let go of him and the funniest thing happened, because as he stood sombre and sad-looking through the funeral, a smile bloomed on his face. Oh, sweet irony, he thought and hugged the child tighter.

Everyone was surprised as they watched the tall man with the baby in his arms walk away from the hole and make his way along all those other graves, all those families of mourners for his sweet Ellie had taken no less than 26 lives when she'd crashed her car into the side of the bridge.
They all stared, in silence and some in awe, as the man and the child – not his own – made their way out of the graveyard and into the rest of their lives.
'Your mother wasn't well,' Rowan would whisper to the baby as it slept, and then later, when the child grew, he began telling it about its mother, about all the bad thoughts that went through her head and all the blame she laid at Rowan's foot when he wasn't really to blame.
'I was sorry for her,' he would say, in that quiet way he had, although he'd never really been sorry for her, not while she was alive. No, then his sweet Ellie had been far from sweet and through all her sins, her cheating and her lies, he had not felt sorry for her once.
No, were he to tell the truth – something he rarely did – Rowan would have to admit he never really cared for Ellie. In fact, he couldn't quite tell you how he found himself shacked up with that slip of a girl with the growing belly, when he'd felt nothing – really, nothing at all – for that poor, troubled girl.
But he never told the child that, not when he had the wealthier role of grieving, wise partner in sight.
And through all the years, the child grew up into a graceful youth, with a slender body and quiet frame, always in the corner, always observing. He was always good at that and he never quite forgot how he'd sat in Rowan's arms, observing his mother's body being put down in the ground.
His mother, who'd promised to come back for him, and who never did. His mother who had wanted to take him away from this cold, heartless man – as she'd tell him many times, in his sleep. And yet, who never did.
And this most graceful child would dream, every now and then, of how his arms would wrap around Rowan's throat, smothering him for his mother's sins.

Today's prompt was 'graceful'. Check out @mariannewest's blog to join our freewriting community!