The Sociopath's Daughter

Chapter One

Liane sat on the grass looking down at the flower she was holding.
Her eyelids did not quiver... her lips did not move. Her face was a little like that of a statue, and there was no statue to outmatch her.

The breeze shook the limp ornament resting in her hand and the sky appeared pale and heavy. Her face was pale, which she would have noticed if she could see it, but presently, she had no handheld mirror in her hand, so she instead imagined she could hold the sky in its emptiness. She looked up at the birds, and she thought they understood.

Nobody was there to witness her silence or guess the reason behind her brooding, if there was any. Perhaps she was just a girl sitting crosslegged on a yellowish lawn that September afternoon, shaking her head every now and then like she wanted to get the dark blonde hair strands of hair out of her face. But her grandmother stood on the balconey of their house, watching her.

Something in her made want her want to reach for pen and paper. The "rustling leaves of thought" she could title the poem at the eleventh second. But that wasn't it. Her thoughts were difficult to grasp, and leaves could, factually, be grasped.

To her grandmother, she did appear aware of the introspective eyes resting on her, but she sighed. Something was bothering her. She seemed restless, even if just for a moment. She peeled the flower like she was trying to rescue a baby chick stuck in a dry shell of an incubator.

Only the snap of a camera might have awakened her from her open eyed deep sleep. It was a state of mind she went into briefly when she wanted to, every so often. She nodded her head like a flower in the wind. If she wanted to look like she was acting a  main role in a movie, she succeeded.

She appeared to hear music that wasn't coming from anywhere outside of her, and her grandmother shifted on her feet. If she moved too fast she might knock over a glass and disturb Liane. This was a form of odd behaviour her mother had not tended to engage in, as far as the older woman was aware, anyhow.

Under her grandmother's furrowed eyebrows, an outsider would not have known the cause of the tragedy in her eyes if there was any sadness. She preferred not to go around informing the town that her daughter-in-law's child was insane, even if she did think so.

Presently, she tapped her coffee mug with a spoon and the sudden noise caught Liane's attention.

"Grandmother, have you got something for me to do?" The girl called out reluctantly. The Mayson daughters were not unused to household chores.

Her grandmom was not always one to reprimand her granddaughters when they spoke in a somewhat offensive or rude tone, and now she did not say anything. She looked down at the pink and gray shawl she was knitting for Liane and told her to come up for lunch. Their mealtime were not a strict shedule on weekends and today was Saturday. Everyone's favorite day of the week.

Carla Mayson must have heard the butterflies in Liane's head when she trotted up the stairs a few minutes later. She was humming along to one of the songs Uncle Samson had taught her as a little girl, and it seldom failed to put Carla in a cheery mood, assuming she was not already.

"What's for lunch, Grandma?"

"You check where your sister is, and I'll answer that question."

"I think she's with Uncle Samson in the basement, making a ruckus. Must I get her?"

"If you refer to that as a  ruckus, but in fact, your uncle's been tuning his harp playing abilities, and your sister is not lagging behind in talent."

Liane turned on her heels and half jumped, half jogged down the stairs the way she sometimes still did. In the basement, she found her Uncle Samson sitting with his back turned in a half lit chair drumming on the harp's strings one finger per note.

Cayla did not look up as she sat by the piano, apparently not in the mood for violin. And more irritatingly, not in the mood for talking. But even Liane was not always the one to probe.

"Grandma says lunch is ready, you two. What's keeping?"

Cayla raised on eyebrow, pressing down extra long on a note and closing her eyes while she hummed a song Liane could not place at the moment. "The music, I suppose. I hope lunch is homemade today?"

"Come on, you know pizza ain't homemade food even if it's baked in an oven. But I suppose that's your thing," Liane retorted.

Uncle Samson laughed, balancing his harp in one arm while he gestured with a violin stick towards Liane. "Even grandma gets a little lazy at times, I must admit. Cayla, dear won't you close that music manuel and lend your old Uncle Samson a hand walking up the stairs."

"I will. Only if you pay me for it," she replied, smiling dryly and Liane took a moment to consider the fact that she seldom smiled.

At the lunch table, not much was discussed, other than the quality of the food and Uncle Samson's new novel that was out on the racks in Scotland. Liane was not the least bit curious.

Every so now, and then, she elbowed Cayla when it appeared to her that "this guy" was bragging too much.

One time, Cayla rolled her eyes. The rest of the time she responded without words in a patronizing elder-sisterly way. Liane was used to it.

Their grandmother was quiet today than normal, even if only Cayla noticed it. One time she almost caught her eye, but Cayla looked away and shuddered. The air was cold, anyhow.