Music, The Food Of Hate
Kara walked as slowly home as she dared. Tonight was piano practice, a once pleasure that she had come to dread. Both her mother and farther played, but her farther was much better. Even when drunk, he could sit at the instrument and make it sing beautiful songs. It should have been a happy home, but fierce jealousy held her mother in a tight grip. The thing that had drawn her to Josh was the thing that was now causing Kara so much pain.
When Katie and Josh had met, they were both good piano players. Josh had grown into his talent, while Katie's seemed to ebb away after she gave birth to Kara. From some twisted logic, she blamed her daughter for taking away her greatest passion. Katie decided that if she had to suffer, the blonde scrap who she'd pushed into the world would also suffer. From day one, Kara had to fight just to get the attention she needed to live.
And suffer Kara had. She couldn't recall one truly happy time with her mother. Every second was a baited one, waiting for the trap to spring closed and hurt her more. It started it small, spiteful things like only making enough pudding for two people and forcing Kara to watch while her parents devoured it. Her father, trapped in his world of music and alcohol, didn't notice the abuse.
And so, it gradually built until one day her mother exploded. Kara, sitting in front of the piano while waiting for her mother to arrive, had seen new songs sheets belonging to her father. With the natural curiosity of a teenager, she began to play them, haltingly at first, but gaining confidence and rhythm as she found the notes came easily to her. Katie stood in the doorway for a full ten minutes before she slammed the lid on her daughter's fingers.
Kara was forced to take herself to the hospital. Her hands, swollen like some strange animal's claws, where so painful that she couldn't drive the tiny car she'd worked so hard to get. She had to walk, in the pouring rain, sixteen blocks to the medical centre. Her mother was too busy tending the piano to notice that everyone of her daughter's fingers where broken. The incident resulted in one thing. Kara made a vow that she never broke. She would not touch a piano again.
She even refused to play at her mother's funeral. Katie passed away from a heart attack at the age of thirty eight, a tragic loss to everyone but her daughter. Her father played, a long haunting lament to his departed queen that made the mourners weep and went and soothed his pain with his second love- drink. Kara cried alone in the back of the church. Her tears were of relief and not sorrow.
The very next day she singed up to join the fleet and found a love of her own. Flying was her saviour. Without it, she knew that she would be a drunk, washout loser just like her father. The knowledge drove her to be the best. Her mother's legacy lingered on. The bones in her hands ached after every flight. Even from the grave, the woman was still haunting her daughter. She mightn't be able to out fly the memories, but Kara was willing to try.