WICKED TALES

TWO

I had always been into classical music since I was a young girl. Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Brahms, the list goes on and on. I could play any type of genre but classical music calmed me but even more so when I had my daughter Jessica. Before Jessica was born and still a little ball of joy in my womb, I would play classical music for her quite often. While raising her, her father Steven decided that I wasn't enough for him anymore and left when Jessica was three years old. It was rough for the first two years after his departure. I tried my hardest to make ends meet, taking on double shifts at the supermarket and odd jobs here and there. It wasn't until I decided to compose my music that things began to get a little easier for me and my daughter.

My mother was very helpful as well. She would babysit Jessica whenever I needed her to, which freed up time to immerse myself in my music career. I was starting to get well known throughout my small community. I played at local events, games, and bars, but when I joined a pop band called Moms Of Music or MOM for short, I started to get my name out there and my music played on the local radio stations. Life was starting to look up. Jessica loved all my music but there was one song that she very keen on called This Song Is For You. It was a song that was written for Jessica. It was part classical part pop and just downright beautiful. I had written it for her when she was one year old and ever since she would sit next to me on my piano bench and hum the notes while I played. It brought me pure joy.

All of my joy and happiness turned to pain when I lost Jessica. She was eleven years old when she died and my and world died right along with her. One day she was leaving out for school as she had done many times before. It was the middle of winter, snowing, and very hard to see outside when she was hit by two different vehicles. Jessica wasn't paying attention nor did she hear the car horn beep to warn her to get out of the road. She was distracted by the music blaring from her headphones and didn't see the vehicle in time to get out of harm's way. After being hit by the first vehicle, she was trampled by a second one sealing her fate that awful day. She died right in front of our home and I was never the same.

I fell into a deep depression, quit the band and my job, and became a recluse in my home. I tried to continue playing music but it became dark, sad, and all-around horrible. I was losing my mind. My mother had passed months before Jessica had and Steven, well he was nowhere around for comfort. Honestly, he didn't even know his daughter enough to give a damn about consoling me, so I was by myself, left with my memories to haunt me. I began to see and hear things, but I chalked it up to my drinking habit I picked up a few days after Jessica's death. I would hear my piano play, lights turn on, knocking from random places of my home, and worse of all I could've sworn I had seen Jessica a few times. I felt like a woman going crazy in a horror movie by Wes Craven or Rob Zombie.

A storm had rolled in and knocked out the power in town causing my depression to deepen. With no lights, no television, and pretty much nothing else to do, I decided to drink and play This Song Is For You on my grand piano. I had to do something because my mind was running a million miles per second and playing awful tricks on me. I sat down, took a deep breath, and focused on every note I began to play. I played slowly, being sure I hit every note perfectly. Tears welled up in my eyes, thinking about how Jessica would hum the notes as I played and enjoyed hearing the song I composed just for her. Playing her song made me feel better as I envisioned her sitting right next to me. I played beautifully even though I was two fifths in the wind. Towards the end of the song, I focused even more, as if it would be the last time I would ever play the song again. Finally done, I hung my head and sobbed deeply. I jumped to my feet when I heard clapping right next to me. It was like someone was giving me a round of applause and then I heard, "it was beautiful Mom."