Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 19:15:23 +0300
Subject: NEW: Piano Recital by Cassandra Lange

Title: The Piano Recital
Author: Cassandra Lange
E-mail: casie_lange@yahoo.com
Category: Vignette
Rating: G
Spoilers: Samantha eps, Emily, Christmas Carol
Note: I can't believe this happened, but I wrote another story about
Caroline Scully Mulder. I think this would qualify as a trilogy, no?

 Tonight I have a piano recital. I'm not worried,really. Why should I
be worried? I know the material by heart. No, that's not true. I know
the material...but not by heart. I know it by rote. Tonight I will
play with no emotion. I have no emotion.
 My mother is dressed in a black, strapless dress, the one my father
brought her last week. She reeks of spicy perfume and pearls that
compliment her fair skin. I stare down at my hands - "gifted" hands,
my teacher says- and staring back at me is short, stubby,
yellow-skinned fingers.
 Who gave me this coloring? Who gave me this mane of dark hair and
black eyes that slant to the left? Certainly not my mother, with her
red hair and clear eyes. And not my father, who is tying a red tie
with green kangaroos on it. "Ready, Caroline?" he asks, that certain
measure of patience present in his voice.
 My parents look at me. I wonder what they see? Do they see me - the
real me, the Asian me? Or do they see "her", the one they want to see,
the one who looks like the two of them, the one who was supposed to be
theirs?
 We pile into the car, my mother driving after playfully snatching the
keys away from dad saying, "No, Mulder, you're not driving today."
  I ponder their words, hear the resonance of my mother's voice. Do I
have that same bell-like quality? My father pats my knee. "Wake up,
sleepyhead, you have to play tonight."
 Should I tell them that I have no memories of before I came to live
with them, before I became Caroline Scully Mulder, before I was my
parents' child? Should I tell them I don't know who I am?
 We arrive at the music hall, which is packed with other parents,
other children. My teacher comes up to us, clasps both of my parents -
my adopted parents- hands. "Caroline will make you proud tonight."
 Will I? Can *I* make them happy?
 I'm led to the stage, forced onto my seat. The music sits before me,
dark and unyielding, as dark as the eyes that stare back at me from
the mirror. How will I play? I can not feel this.
 I look out at the audience. My fingers position themselves on the
keys. I begin to play the way a child of my parents would play. And at
the end, I receive a standing ovation, and my parents are clapping
proudly in the front row.