Chapter 2: Chapter 2 Singing to the birds
Mishka walked through the woods singing at the top of her voice. She was happy to be out of the house that she shared with her grandmother. She just wanted to focus on her music and not her father's electronics company. At least for today she would rebel. She was taking the day off to indulge in her dreams.
She has always wanted to travel the world as a successful singer and entertainer. Her father allowed her to indulge herself in her music evenings and dance shows occasionally. It was too rare according to Mishka's liking because it was all that she actually lived for.
"Why should I be cut off from them permanently simply because I want to live my own life by choosing my own career path?" she asked herself as she stood still by the edge of the stream which wove itself through the forest.
Walking alone in the forest was also not approved of by Mishka's grandmother, Myrtle. Mishka's father also did not like her to be walking in the woods alone. But, all this disapproval on behalf of her folks is what drove Mishka to be more daring and to do things which other people thought dangerous.
She loved to defy the odds. Like remaining single until middle-age, as her grandmother kept warning her.
"So, why should I hurry myself into a white wedding dress and marry someone who isn't my first choice?" she often asked herself after one of her and her grandmother's fights about her being single at twenty-two years of age.
"All your father's business partners have offered their sons already. Do you want to settle down for a pauper?" Myrtle would ask during one of their arguments.
"If I have to marry the son of one of my dad's business partners it will be one who has not been there before and who tickles my fancy. Someone that I can look up to and with whom I have lots in common," Mishka had responded to a recent argument between her and her grandmother.
"That's idealistic. In other words, unrealistic," Myrtle had responded. "You still have to wake up to the real world because you can't take over from your father one day. You're a woman and the business world won't take you seriously.
You need a man by your side to be taken seriously," she had added in a stern tone, with her mouth set in a thin, straight line of disapproval.
Mishka had just walked away then. She escaped into the garden where she had set in the shade and wondered what life without her grandmother would be like.
A life without constantly having to explain herself. Where she would feel free to be herself in every area of the house instead of only in her bedroom. A life without constant disapproval and fighting.
"But, when is she going back to her own house?" Mishka asked herself now. "She's too used to life in a mansion with many servants by now," Mishka told herself.
Her father had not remarried yet, so her grandmother was still in charge of the house.
"So, when will I ever get a chance to be in charge?" Mishka often asked herself. "It's better to go away and pursue my career," she concluded after some thought.
Now she listened to the sound of her voice as she sang to the skies above her. She was thinking about how the audience loved her whenever she sang on stage.
Then there was the music producer who had approached her with an offer which she could not refuse. She would be able to tour Europe for three months because she had once sung at a theatre in Paris. The people there had loved her performance.
But now there was the matter of her father and the business that she was helping him with.
"Why did Denzel have to leave me with all this responsibility? She asked as she began to walk over the small bridge which crossed the small river stream which ran through the forest.
Denzel was three years older than her and he could have helped her with the family business, if only he was not so sensitive about his father's feelings and comments about his sexuality.
He had finally revealed that he was gay and that he wanted to conduct his life according to his own wishes.
His father's reaction was explosive. He had been furious with his son. He swore that he would not forgive his son for choosing his own selfishness over the family that had given him an education and every good thing that he had in life.
"Now my brother is living in France in a small apartment instead of a large mansion, which was his family home for almost twenty-five years," Mishka remarked to the singing birds around her.
"But, at least he is happy there, pursuing his dream of being a successful fashion designer while I am caught up in the cold life of an electronics company," she added.
"Why do both of us take after my mother with her artistic side? Couldn't one of us be just cold and pragmatic like Dad?" she asked into the sky above her.
The clouds were beginning to gather above her head.
"It's gonna rain soon and I'm far from home, but I'm supposedly sick," Mishka said to herself.
"It was the only way to have some time to myself and indulge my dreams at least for a day," she continued.
"If it begins to rain I will just have to go to Gillian's house. I can wait there with her mother until she comes back from work," Mishka declared to the birds up in the trees.
She had crossed the big lake on a boat by rowing it herself. Her father had taught her how to when she was still eleven years old. He did this so that she would not have to depend on a motor boat at all times.
"You have to learn how to do certain things without the power of a machine," he had told her then.
Mishka had enjoyed the lessons and she enjoyed rowing a boat herself up until now. It gave her a great sense of control to be able to cross the big lake on her own strength.
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