Moonlight Sonata

Landslide

**Artwork for the cover was done by an etsy artist of yours truly, so it's my right to use it since it's my commissioned work.**

"I took my love, I took it down, I climbed a mountain and I turned around, And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills, 'Till the landslide brought me down, Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?" - Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

Lee Karr was staring absently out the window at her work, listening to the song Landslide through Pandora.  Her mind was not on the dozens of calls she had already taken that day, not the families on the other side of the glass seeing their family member that had made a bad choice in life, or even the visits that were scheduled ahead.  Her mind was far away in the past as the song was triggering the very thoughts that haunted her night after night as she lay awake, unable to sleep.

There were no happy endings.  Fairytales, Disney movies, fantasies... they had lied to her since she was a child.  She had always clung onto those hopes and expectations, despite the traumas of growing up in a home of violence... despite the slaps of life... When she had met Riley, she thought she had come into that dream.  They had a whirlwind romance that spanned the oceans.  He had been in Ireland, she in the Midwest of Iowa.  They went through the whole 90-day fiancée visa process and got married as soon as he stepped foot in the states.  A three years later, they had their daughter, Phoenix.  It was a picturesque life and they had the perfect marriage.  They loved one another deeply and that love spilled over to their child.

Then one day, Riley didn't come home.  Lee could still remember being worried sick, not understanding why he was so late and then frantic.  Phoenix had been just a baby then.  She had fallen to her knees when the officer came to the home.  They had found Riley in his truck, parked in an open field with a gunshot to the head.  He had committed suicide.  She had no clues that he was even depressed.  He had left the house smiling only to never return.  The only clue was a scrawled note:  I'm sorry.  No reason given.  Just gone.

His family had blamed her, even accused her of having an affair and that Phoenix was not even his child.  That it had to be the reason he had done it so close after her birth.  They had closed the door between them and shunned her.  Her own family had tried to give support for a time but they always had that look... that she had done something wrong.  That somehow it was her fault.  Only her mother had stood fast next to her, then she also was gone.  A massive heart attack in her sleep a year later.

Lee sold almost everything they had, packed Phoenix up, and moved as far South as she could to South Padre Island, Texas.  The ocean had always been a healing balm to her and she wanted her daughter to know that kind of peace.  Phoenix was three years old now.  She had gotten her father's coloring with his strawberry blonde hair and big green eyes, fair skin that she had to slather in sunscreen continuously, and dimples in both cheeks.  Yet her features, they were all Lee.  Heart shaped face, almond shaped eyes, perfectly arched eyebrows, a slender nose, and heart shaped lips that were almost coral in color.

Lee smirked, Riley's family would have been unable to deny her if they had taken the time to see her.  Except for her facial features, she was all Riley.  She wondered as she had a dozen times why he had checked out on them, leaving them alone in a world of heartache and pain.  She would never know.  She vowed to be both mother and father for Phoenix.  She would not risk bringing another man around her, who would not be able to love her as their own.  Lee had grown up in that situation and it had been worse than not having a father at all.

She had also decided to never talk bad about her father.  When he had been there, it had been the best years of her life.  She was still confused as to how it had all gone wrong but she knew that was an answer she would never have, no matter how hard she thought about it.  Phoenix had not asked about him yet but she knew it was only a matter of time before she noticed at Day Care that others had a male figure around and she did not.