A/N: I Own Nothing!

"She could hear those church bells ringing, ringing/And up in the loft, that whole choir singing, singing/Fold your hands and close your eyes/Yeah, it's all gonna be alright/And just listen to the church bells ringing, ringing/Yeah, they're ringing..."
-"Church Bells," Carrie Underwood

Preface

It was late, the sky a dark and inky black, and the salty-sweet gulf air wafted through the open window of a little girl's bedroom. The little girl slept soundly despite the noise coming from the room down the hall. A woman sobbed loudly as a man struck her with his fist each time that he berated her for something beyond her control. When the sobbing stopped, when the air became still, the man gathered the woman in his arms and carried her down to the house's private dock and onto the boat moored there. He started the boat's engine, and the sound was enough to wake the girl. Scrambling from her bed, she made her way to the window and peered down to see her mother lying on the deck of the boat as her father drove it off towards the darkened horizon and out of her line of sight.

The girl sat at her window until the first rays of morning light showed the boat's return. Only her father was on board; her mother was nowhere in sight. A bronze-skinned woman met her father on the dock, and the little girl watched as he smiled and pulled the woman in for a passionate kiss. The girl crawled back into her bed and wept silently as she returned to sleep. Her mother was never coming back from the water.

A/N: R&R! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, sweets!