FAR FROM NORMAL ── REGGIE PETERS

03. STUDIO GHOSTS

     But he didn't lay into her. He didn't even seem to know that his daughter had been kicked from the music program. The phone call had been from the realtor friend who was helping the Molina's sell their home, not from school. But Ray did want something from his daughter, trying to break it to her slowly.

     He wanted her to clean out her mother's studio in the garage so he could take photos for the website to sell the home. Julie wasn't huge on the idea whatsoever, especially since it was the studio. She hadn't even been within proximity of her mother's studio since she passed away, never mind inside of it.

     "You're the expert. Your brother and I, we wouldn't even know where to begin." Ray was right in some sense - Julie was the musical one in the family, she would know how to tackle the cleaning of all the instruments and all the things that belonged to her mother. But when he saw her face drop, he realised he may have made a mistake. "It's okay honey if you're not ready I-"

     Julie cut him off with a shake of her head.

     "No, it's alright." Julie mustered as big a smile as she could for her father knowing that he needed to see it, knowing she needed it. "Maybe I'll try, tonight."

     This pleased her father who had a small bubble of hope inside him begin to grow that maybe, just maybe, his daughter was beginning to make progress and pass through the dark tunnel she had been lost in since her mother passed away.

     So that was that. Julie was cleaning out her mom's studio.

     She waited a long time before even attempting to go out there, waiting until it was almost completely dark outside. She didn't know how long it would be till her dad and brother got back from Carlos' baseball game, and she wanted to have at least made an attempt to clean some stuff out before they arrived back.

     Julie felt it before she even opened the studio doors, the pain which almost swallowed her whole. Memories of her and her mother's time in the studio flooded through her, memories of her and Ashley sitting on top of the grand piano as Ashley mock serenaded her with her acoustic or electric guitar, memories of Carlos dancing to Ashley's silly and random piano tunes.

     The studio held so much worth but it was so hard to be there.

     It hadn't changed and no wonder since nobody had touched it since Julie's mother passed away. Everything was as it was from the chairs floating on the ceiling, the tea cups on the table, to the flowery curtains adorning all the windows. It was in the moment where Julie sat down at the piano that she wished she had Ashley with her - Ashley would know just what to say and do.

     If Julie had have known that she would be spending her evening going through the studio, she would've fought harder for Ashley to stay with her a while longer.

     "I'm so sorry, Mom," Julie puffed out a sigh, looking towards the sky as she spoke, hoping her mom could hear her, "that I haven't been in here."

     The young girl stayed seated at the piano for another moment before she looked up towards the loft and felt suddenly drawn to it, like something was calling for her. It was up there where all the old instruments had been, the stuff which had been left in the garage by the previous owners - a drum kit, a bass guitar and another guitar. The loft also housed Ashley's electric that she kept at Julie's so she didn't have to drag her own from her house wherever she went.

     While up in the loft, scanning her eyes across all the instruments that lived there, brushing her fingers across Ashley's electric softly, Julie spotted a CD lying flat on the floor, a CD she could've sworn she had never seen before - 'Sunset Curve' it read on the front and when Julie picked it up, the drawing feeling she had felt left her. Maybe this had been what was calling to her from the piano?