Quarantine

Adalynn hated playing the piano and had told her parents just that she despised the large instrument. She even said that she didn’t want to play it ever again at home or in front of a crowd. Nathan and Rachel both didn’t let her stop, saying that she shouldn’t be a quitter and that she was too young to know what she wants.

Addie moved her fingers across the large instrument, hoping she would be done soon and knowing she was only half way through her practice session. The hour seemed to crawl by slowly as she moved onto another song. The worst thing about knowing how to play the piano in Adalynn’s mind was being forced to play in her parent’s church on the holidays. She always got nervous, and her limbs shook like the earth wasn’t stable under her. Her hands got a little sweaty as she thought about it without the threat of playing in public for another month.

Rachel watched her youngest daughter play. She liked watching Addie’s fingers move over the black and white keys like she did in her own time. Rachel liked that she was giving this skill to her daughter and hoped that she would one day appreciated the sound and the instrument itself. Rachel wished that her mom had done this for her when she was her youngest child’s age, but she was forced to save up and teach herself when she got her first job.

“You sound so beautiful,” she said, smiling widely. She was trying to be as encouraging as any mom would.

Adalynn just shrugged, not really interested in how she sounded. This was the most hated hour of the day, and she really hoped for something else that she could do. Maybe read or draw, but she was stuck playing an instrument that she hated. She even begged her parents a couple times to let her do something else that she had more interest in. There was just a false promise that they would look into it. Adalynn’s parents never looked into it. She was slightly disappointed in that and wondered if this was the reason why Baden moved out.

“You know everyone will be so jealous since you are such a talented person,” Rachel pushed, trying to get a smile out of her daughter. She wasn’t completely oblivious to how her daughter felt about the piano, but she didn’t get that Adalynn tried to delay going to practice or getting out of it completely every day.

“So?” Adalynn shot back like any eight year old would. She was young, and she hadn’t seen much. She did know a bit though which was nothing good comes out of jealousy. “I don’t want people jealous.”

Rachel was a little shocked by her response. Adalynn was a little more observant than she originally thought. “Well, how about we stop for now and get an afternoon snack?” she asked, looking at her watch. She figured two minutes wouldn’t hurt being skipped.

Adalynn nodded and got off of the bench in front of the piano. She knew that her mom was only letting her free two minutes early, but it was still nice. It was two minutes free of doing something that she found boring. Plus, she knew that she would get an apple and peanut butter which were her favorite things to eat.

Rachel turned and saw a large black dog in the door way. She shook her head and the dog had disappeared. She had never owned a dog in her life. In fact, she was terrified of dogs, so seeing a dog in her home frightened her. She walked into the hall to see if there was any evidence of it actually being there, but there was nothing. “What the…,” she muttered under her breathe.

She didn’t know what brought that on. She had never seen anything like that before. She took in a shaky breathe and walked to the kitchen before Adalynn could notice something was wrong.

Adalynn followed behind her mother and was confused when she heard her mother mutter something. She couldn’t make out the words, but she never saw her mom act like that. She looked around and sat at the table as her mother started to cut an apple.

Rachel fixed the snack or Addie as quickly as she could. Her nerves were shaken, but they were starting to settle. Rachel turned to set the plate in front of her daughter and saw her look skinny as if she hadn’t eaten in years which wasn’t true. Rachel always made sure that her daughter ate what she needed. She shook her head, but what she saw wasn’t going away like the dog. It lingered for a few seconds before fading off revealing a healthy Adalynn.

Adalynn looked at her mom who stood frozen with the paper plate in hand. She felt like saying something as her mom came out of the trance and set the plate down in front of her. She took a piece of the apple and dipped it in the peanut butter.

Rachel went to clean up her mess. She wanted to know what was going on. Maybe there was something wrong with her like overworking or not getting enough sleep, but she never thought that not getting enough sleep would cause her to hallucinate her daughter seriously underweight. That just didn’t seem to fit in Rachel’s head, but she didn’t know what else she could blame. There wasn’t anything else that she could blame logically.

Rachel was a girl who took care of herself. She ate healthy foods and made sure she got enough sleep at night. She would get up and exercise on a daily basis, so hallucinating anything seemed so far out of context, and so did blaming anything other than maybe overworking.

Except there was something that Rachel could blame, but in her mind it wasn’t possible. It was just something that she got every year even when the town doesn’t require it. It never reacted like this, so in a way it wasn’t her fault for overlooking that. The whole town didn’t have an idea that it could do.