It wasn't the slide of her pinkie nail over the A string that stopped her heart at eleven years old, nor the terror slashing dejected lungs after staining the prized violin her father stole from Gotham's Old Opera House. The arch of his brow and twinge of disdain were anticipated. In that moment, Anaya Bowin realized that she would never be able to echo his impossible talent back to him. Even after she fled Keystone City with a musician long dead, the transgressions of Isaac Bowin I remained the only spectral arm over her waist that caressed her off to restless, dreamless sleep each night.
She'd never feel that way again.
He trained her, after all.
Anaya straightened the sleeves of her emerald blazer after tip-toeing for the spare key above the front door frame. It had been months since she visited and even longer that she loathed how foolish a man could be when it came to protecting his worldly possessions. Why did she continue to put it there after all this time? Autumn's chill nibbled at tawny skin. She tugged at the striped black and gold cuffs at her wrists. Muscle memory, she surmised, turning the decorative locks with a concentrated hand.
The extended hiss of the threshold seal reverberated across her memory. Sneaking out junior year of high school and praying she wouldn't get caught. That warm embrace of air which followed memorizing time signatures in the snow as punishment. Nothing but hazy flashes before smoldering photographs. Anaya slipped the key into the back pocket of her jeans and gripped the cool handle of her violin case.
Obsidian loafers met a textile rug stretching down a hallway branching into the living room, kitchen, and stairway. Pale light poked through the thin slits of shuttered windows, targeting clumps of dust descending onto spoils from the height of her father's thieving days in India. Ceramic elephant statues, delicately painted by hand hundreds of years ago, perched on the mantle of the coal-ridden fireplace. Beside restored Bankura horses from West Bengal, burnished pottery shadowed by arabesque patterns rested atop cluttered mahogany end tables. Anaya's shoulders tensed as her studying gaze fell upon the colorful upholstery.
Ma used to read there.
No nine-year-old should envy a parent for dying in the fiery throes of a Metropolis-bound car crash. And yet, as Anaya sauntered over scuffed floorboards, reluctantly fiddling with her wedding band, she wondered if she could have broached the topic more. Say that she finished her homework, that Pa agreed she needed first-hand experience to perform in an orchestra someday. Maybe then she wouldn't be reminded with every insidious gleam in his eye that no Bowin would ever leave him again.
How was he getting by without me anyway? The malevolent maestro bit her lower lip from curling. His Parkinson's diagnosis still brought on fits of laughter.
Concise footsteps trailed up the carpeted stairs at the end of the hall, silent by instinct. The door to her old room remained bolted at the top of the landing.
Ever since she packed her bags to pursue a teaching degree in Blue Valley, she vowed that her children would never savor the acidity of mistrust and listlessness. But it didn't end with her son Isaac. Seeing kids come into her office possessing the traits she despised or bearing the brunt of what followed often wracked her knees. Their generation had no chance with the way modern civilization functioned… which meant she didn't either. Joining the Injustice Society of America wasn't difficult.
Until Isaac could come home without a bruise, she could stave off slitting Paula Brooks' throat.
Hopefully.
Determination soothingly stirred Anaya's gut as she inched toward the sliver of light underneath the doorway to the lesser Isaac's music room. Esurient breath filled her chest and steadied. For the first and last time in her life, she twisted the rotund diamond knob and stepped through.
Well there's Music Meister's baton.
Against ornate butterscotch wallpaper were plentiful shelves, racks, and trinkets of all Isaac I held dear. Past a marble piano, copper duggi drums fit snugly between rows of leather-bound tablature. Encased with the Meister's conducting tool was the soporific flute of the Pied Piper droning for its original owner behind soundproof glass. On the opposite side of the room, Anaya could make out faint flecks of her blood across the Wayne's bone-white violin. A framed Doctorate in Music Composition hung above.
She would have found everything mildly impressive if it weren't for Ma's jade salwar-kameez displayed in the middle of the leftmost wall. Voice caught, she recalled distant, tiny fingers transfixed by the bedazzled accents of the opaque dress shirt and trousers. Any confidence that fueled Anaya's drive continued to buckle her legs moments after begging herself to avert her eyes from the blinding, oncoming vehicle.
You said it was gone.
Her violin nearly slipped from her right hand.
Overlooking blank sheets of music with a quivering fountain pen, Isaac I ruffled his silver wizened locks along the headrest of a Corinthian leather writing chair. Unperturbed by her arrival. "Someone's been ignoring my calls," he exhaled gruffly. Overcast sunlight slithered over shrouded features from the half-moon window above his desk.
Anaya rubbed a perspiring thumb over the ring which promptly shrunk ten sizes too small. You're the one in control. "Father."
Isaac I angled a layered neck around, revealing deep unshaven lines across sallow cheeks. No more than a second passed that his glare fell longingly on the unrequited instrument within Anaya's grasp. They fell begrudgingly back to his daughter while he massaged arched, clotted wrists.
"Saw that article 'bout you a while back," he began, yanking the sleeves of an Egyptian blue cardigan. "Never figured you an authority type. What changed?"
Anaya considered the pride of shaking Principal Sherman's hand for the paper before her promotion. The flutter in her heart when Wally West got accepted to Central City University. How trusted she felt when Joey Zarick confided about his bullying. The despair of Yolanda Montez being ridiculed on her watch. Steeling her jaw, she willed the fluctuating ground to steady beneath her.
"Nothing really. I've always wanted what's best for my kids."
A disbelieving huff passed between a chapped snarl. "What's best?" I wanted you to take Yamini's chair!" he barked with a waving arm. "All that potential! Wasted!"
"Don't flatter yourself!" Anaya giggled. "I didn't come all this way to reminisce on what little ego you think you still have."
The cord in his neck retracted, a measured sigh wilting with the purse of thin lips. A pause. "So what do I owe the pleasure?"
Anaya drew a placating breath which stoked blazing lungs. Sweat cascaded down her brow as she laid the carbon fiber case on the eggshell coffee table between them. Sinking into the tufted couch, a lukewarm glass of alcohol rippled atop a corkboard coaster.
Why can't you get it over with? A melody clawed at its shackled prison in agreement. Anaya unconsciously toyed with a frayed thread from her blazer; estranged, out of place. This was supposed to be easy.
But she needed to know.
"How could you keep it from me?" She had never heard her voice so desperate yet so soft.
Squares of ice crinkled in its pool of abstraction. Isaac I guzzled the drink at once, mirroring an indent on the bridge of his nose from oval-rimmed glasses. "Use you words, Naya."
Eyeing her instrument, she could sense her husband's lilt of encouragement.
"They say with depression, it can blend entire months and years together. Good, bad. Current, past. All the same. Probably why I didn't learn much from your lessons besides your rage," Anaya chuckled, speaking with certainty. "I try to think back on a time before… and there's only one image I can really see of her."
Isaac I scoffed. "You came on the anniversary of my wife's death just to complainabout–"
Black. Long after a growl extruded from strained vocal chords, Anaya realized she had swiped the glass from his hand and shattered it against the wall.
"Remember Nani's party the week before? How you were so busy pick-pocketing her family to care that I was overwhelmed by the music and dancing? That you told me to bother someone else while you were 'doing business'?"
Chest heaving, Isaac I watched incredulously.
"I was alone! Screaming and crying and grabbing anyone that would get me away from all that noise! I don't know how long I searched..." Anaya's face gradually illuminated with a grin. "And when I ran into Ma's kameez… There was never a more beautiful shade of green. Every time I think of her, I see my arms stretching for a hug, finding safety and warmth in the designs you never let me touch. That was the last shred of happiness I felt with you around."
Bewildered eyes met Anaya's apathetic gaze. "We were nothing but trophies for a meaningless collection. You took every memory I had of her, tossed all my awards in the trash, and filled the house with songs and stories that were never yours.
"My Isaac will be better. And I'm glad Ma isn't alive to see how I came to that conclusion."
Her father stiffened. Gripping the padded arms of his seat, visage contorting into unbridled fury.
And… to her amazement… cracked.
"How… how could you believe that? You have no idea the pain I've endured without her here!" Isaac I hiccuped between gulps of air, standing. "Everything I've done… cultivated… built was for our name! Of all the wonders in the world… all the people I've met in places that don't even exist anymore… Yamini was the sweetest sound of all!
"My teacher saw what kind of music I could breathe into his daughter and I did! I see her in every corner, every song we used to play!" He arched back a hanging head streaked with excuses reeking of petrichor. "Why can't you?"
As he tumbled to her feet, Anaya's lashes pooled with tears she forbade to fall. On the verge of trembling, she couldn't help but envision the summer sighs of her youth. How they murmured promises of better beginnings that she fell for every time. Praying against the coming rot through battered chimes and tornadoes of once-verdant leaves.
Inevitable.
Catastrophic.
Anaya Yamini Bowin.
"You're right." Venom scalded her tongue through gritted teeth. Did she really believe his empty words? Anaya's shoulders gave way to understanding as her stare sunk from her violin to her father. "You're right."
Elation. "I knew you'd see!" Isaac I sprung from the intricate floral carpet to the embroidered cushion beside her, flinging a shivering arm around her neck. In the hollow of Anaya's collarbone, he whimpered with endless gratitude.
Her throat seized as his salty tears bubbled between the miniature loops of her aurum necklace. If it weren't for the cackle she struggled to suppress, she might have found their final embrace somewhat touching.
Under her chin, azure eyes shone like never before. "Will you play for me?" he pleaded delicately. Corkscrewed talons stroked her cheek. "Like old times? For Yamini?"
At long last. Anaya's face scrunched in a sob nearly three decades in the making.
Like a fiddle.
"Of course."
Skittering to the arm of the couch across from her, Isaac I choked with joy as Anaya brandished an encouraging smirk. Unflinching hands pecked frigid brass latches. Flipping the container open, she couldn't tell whether it had chipped from her husband's exploits or her own; they were all starting to blur together. No matter, Anaya thought. Things can always be replaced.
For a weapon so hollow, midnight never felt more grounded. Undulations of light refracted each curve along the violin's umber body, luminescent strings pulled taut over a raven fingerboard. Moon-drenched streaks atop incorporeal water. An inexplicable tether to her husband and the dream.
Eternally famished.
Howling to teach.
"So many to choose from! It's been so long, Naya!" Isaac I sniffed through unsuspecting giddiness. Anaya veered her head ever so slightly, palming the sleek pernambuco wood of the bow. "Pagnini? Ernst? Sciarrino?"
"Hmm." With a musician's flourish, she twirled the baneful violin from its casket and, burrowing her jaw in the chin rest, found serenity. Deer before headlights. Pianissimo. Beaming, she blew restrained air through flared nostrils. "How about the one that snapped my nails and sent me to the E.R. when I was 11?"
The decaying twinkle of those shameful baby blues whirled down the drain. Honeyed like the snapshot of her mother. Lamented doubly so.
Anaya dusted the composition from memory and performed without worry or her father's sneers warping her insides. All that stood beside her as the artifacts, lights, and furniture of her childhood tomb shattered into fragments was the compassionate echo of a partner dearly missed. And, if she listened hard enough, she could convince herself that Ma was there too. Donned in her jade salwar-kameez. Harmonizing a farewell. Reclaiming what was hers.
It wasn't the blood trickling down Isaac I's ears or the fluid frothing from his eyelids that brought her to tears at 35 years old, nor the riotous relief of vindicating her mother through an instrument now her own. It was in that moment, over pleas of mercy and collapsing ribs, where Anaya Bowin realized…
She was going to miss Isaac's band practice.
Haven't you learned, Anaya? Sighing, the Blue Valley principal combed pulverized crystal from her shoulder-length hair. A good parent should never forget.