She shakes her head.
I look down at her hands, once again covered by the black fingerless gloves. They are clasped tightly on her lap. I slowly reach down and take her hand in mine. She doesn’t protest, but she is intrigued, as though she has no control over her hands. So I slowly bring her hand up to the piano keys and uncurl her fingers. I reach for her other hand and do the same, getting more confident as I lift it to the keys and uncurl her fingers again.
She sits there, perfect posture as she always used to, her in that position fitting better than any glove over a Flawed hand. Her fingers start to move slowly over the keys, not pressing them. No sound is being made, but she gets a feel for the keys again. She smiles.
“Go on,” I whisper encouragingly.
She lifts her hands gracefully, and I’m waiting, holding my breath to see what she will play, and then she quickly slams her hands down again on the keys. Up and down, up and down, bang, bang, bang, like a toddler let loose on the instrument. I jump at first, then freeze as I watch her, waiting for her to stop this madness. And it is madness; I can see it in her face. There is anger and hate and pain all bursting through her, trying to get out, but her eyes are mad and wild. The sound of the keys is disturbing, the clash of the notes being hit over and over again.
I look around uncertainly, not sure what to do.
“Angelina,” I say gently, but my voice can barely be heard over the notes. So I raise my voice. “Angelina, please stop.”
She ignores me, continuing her attack on the piano, moving from the lower keys to the higher keys, making the most unusual, distorted sounds from something that she used to make sound so beautiful. I wonder if it sounds beautiful to her, now that her mind, too, has become so distorted. If she hears Mozart where I hear madness. She continues as if I’m not there, her elbow digging into me, almost pushing me off the bench. I stand up and move away from her, and I wonder if I should call for help, as she’s having some kind of an episode.
The door is flung open.
“What on earth?” Bob says, stepping inside.
She ignores us, continuing to be lost in her music with a smile on her face. But there is no happiness in it, just a demented picture of contentment.
Bob stands there in shock, watching her, not recognizing her.
“What’s she doing here?” Colleen asks suddenly, appearing at the door. “What’s going on?” She looks inside and sees her mother. Her mouth falls open. “What did you do to her?” she shouts over the noise.
“Me?” I ask, shocked. “Nothing. I didn’t do—”
“What did you do to my mom?” she yells, angrily, coming close to my face.
I back away. “Nothing. I didn’t do…” but she’s not listening.
“Get out of our house,” Colleen shouts.
I look to Bob for some kind of normality, to bring logic to the situation, but he is distracted. He makes his way over to his wife, holding his hands near her, hovering around her body as if he’s afraid to touch her.
Colleen puts her hands to her ears as though she just can’t take this anymore, not just the sound of her mother but whatever else she is hearing in her head. Her own voice, her own cries, her own anguish.
“Get out,” she says to me, disgust written all over her face.
I move closer to the door. I give one last look to Angelina, crazily banging down on the keys, an entirely different woman, maddened by the branding of her body and the treatment that comes with it. Suddenly she lifts one hand off the keys but continues banging with her right hand, and she reaches for the lid. I think she’s about to stop playing just as Bob is asking her to, and then I see what’s about to come.
“No, Angelina!” I shout, and they both look at me and miss her slamming the lid down on her right hand. The hand that is branded.
Once is not enough. She cries out in pain yet continues it over and over again.
“This is not my hand! These are not my fingers!”
It takes both Colleen and Bob to stop her, but by then I know the damage has already been done. She has broken her own fingers.
FORTY
STUNNED, I STUMBLE down the corridor to the front door. I open it and am faced with the media. They see the look on my face, which I have forgotten to adjust.
“What happened, Celestine?”
“Are you planning a coup?”
“Are you gathering a Flawed army?”
“Is Angelina Tinder part of your alliance?”
“Is it true you’re setting up a Flawed political party?”
I push through them and stagger forward to my house.