Karina Ford
Mar 2, 2011 4:11:45 GMT -5
Post by Karina Ford on Mar 2, 2011 4:11:45 GMT -5
The easy S T U F F . . .Name: Karina Ford
Nickname: None
Age: Twenty-seven
Member Group: Local
Power(s): None
Play By: Amy MansonLet it F L O W . . .
My favourite colour is blue. I like sunshine and I like rain, but I really don’t like snow. I like reading – though I don’t usually have time to sit down with a book. I think music is the most wonderful thing in the world.
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When my Mom was seventeen years old, she fell in love with a weed-smoking, motorcycle-driving cliché named Trent. Needless to say, her own mother was less than thrilled. The result: my older sister, Star.
Yes, her name really is Star. It takes everyone a while to believe that she’s actually called that. She likes to pretend that it isn’t, and calls herself Starra nowadays – she tells people that her father was Eastern European.
Ironically, the next man to impregnate my mother really was Eastern European: a Pole named Marek. In the naming stakes, I got off very lightly – I like Karina, even if I do have to spell it to everyone I meet.
By this point, Star was five and my mother wasn’t speaking to any members of her family. We were living in Chicago.
My mother had already started hearing the voices.
When I was four, Mom had her third and final child – another daughter. With regards to the father, she quite literally struck gold: William J Carson was one of the richest men in the state. He fell, as men so often did, for my mother’s beautiful oval face and fragile smile, and when my sister Jenna was born he fell in love with her as well.
I liked him. He’s in some of my earliest memories, and he was the first male who spent any length of time in my life when I was young. He was kinder to Star and I than he needed to be – even after he moved out, when he came to visit Jenna at weekends he would take us out for the day as well. We adored him.
Mom always screamed at him, and said he was trying to turn her own daughters against her. But it wasn’t like that. He knew what we were going through, and he wanted to help in whatever way he could. He even paid for music lessons for all three of us. Without him, I wouldn’t have the piano.
He died when Jenna was nine, and left her a substantial trust fund. Mom was furious that she had no access to it, but Star and I knew that he had done the right thing. Mom had driven him out of the house, and he must have known how dangerous she would be if she got hold of the money.
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Mom could never tell what was real, and what wasn’t. She would hear things, sometimes see things, and get angry for no reason. Nobody knows exactly what causes schizophrenia, but they think it’s partly genetic. You either get lucky, or you don’t.
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Mom would take off, often for days at a time. An imaginary enemy or errand – sometimes just a man who had asked her to go with him for a few days. She would leave a note on the fridge.
Star was going through a rebellious phase, she was never around. Jenna and I didn’t want to ask anyone for help in case the social services separated us, so we learned how to do everything ourselves. Sometimes Mom would give us some money if she was in a good mood, and I would always save it for the next time she left.
The old lady who lived next to us used to pay me to do her washing up. I don’t think she really needed me – she just wanted to find some way to help Jenna and me.
Once, when Mom hadn’t been around for a week, I stole some money from the old lady’s purse. She gave me a look the next day which said she knew, but she never asked me about it.
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I’ve never had a steady boyfriend. Guys have been interested, and I’ve been interested in them, but free time has never been something I’ve had a lot of, and they tend to run a mile when they see my family. It's not something I ever think about, really.
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I got my first job when I was fifteen. I lied and said I was sixteen. I was a waitress. I used to work as late into the night as I could, even though it meant that I often fell asleep in school the next day.
The teachers kept saying how bright I was, and how it was such a shame I was so lazy and wouldn’t work. But I couldn’t tell them, could I? I knew they would take Jenna away, and put Mom into a mental hospital. Every time they asked me if there was trouble at home, I would give them my biggest smile and tell them that everything was fine.
I loved the summer holidays. They meant I could work all day, every day.
Even when Mom was around, I couldn’t relax. She was getting worse and worse. Without Star to scream at and fight with, she would pick on me – I don’t think she even knew that she was doing it.
She used to have moments when she was Mom. It was like sunlight breaking through. But then the fog would come back, and she would turn on me like I was something evil.
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Our school had one old piano, and sometimes the cleaner would let me in after hours to play it.
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They came for Jenna when she was thirteen, just after Star moved out to live with her boyfriend. They said she was a meta-human, and she could create illusions with her mind.
I don’t like to admit it, but it was the best thing that ever happened to us.
I missed her more than I can say, but at least she was out of the house – she didn’t have to cope with Mom any more, and she was eating and sleeping better at Hammel than she ever did at home. I could save more of the money I earned, and I could even work a little less. My grades shot up.
I actually passed high school, something I had never expected to do. I got a steady job in a music shop – it paid well, and I could play the pianos when I had a spare minute or two.
Mom was deteriorating, and getting her to take her pills properly was becoming more and more difficult. She was a nightmare to live with, but she was my mother – there was no way I was going to move out, like Star had done. I kept feeling that there had to be something I could do to make her get better.
The only problem was, I couldn’t see what Star had always known. There was never any way to help Mom when she didn’t want to be helped.
Then she met Charlie. I only saw him a few times before Mom went off with him. He seemed nice enough, but then he was gone and so was she.
It shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. She’d done it before. Only this time, she still hasn’t come back. I get these letters, or postcards, but they never tell me anything. There isn’t even a return address. I don’t know where she is, or what she’s doing.
Every day, I expect her to walk through my door.
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I’m not telling you any of this to make you pity me. I don’t want that. I’m just telling you so that you know who I am. I don’t want attention. I just want someone to hear me. I want someone to know everything about me.
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Jenna graduated well, but I’d been getting disturbing reports from her teachers from some time. Her ability made her confused – she had trouble telling real things from imaginary – and it was already a lot worse than most people who are gifted in that way.
Looking back, I can’t remember when I realised. Maybe it was the time she got fired from her shop job for screaming at a customer. Maybe it was the time we had an argument and she smashed a plate. Maybe it was the time she told me, in detail, about a childhood holiday she remembered – and that I knew for certain had never happened.
She didn’t want to go to a doctor, but I made her. I wasn’t going to let her turn into Mom – her family had never given her the help she needed, and I didn’t want to let Jenna turn out like that.
I hated asking for help. I always have. But this time, after four years of watching her slowly get worse, I knew that I had to.
When I thought about it, it was obvious where to go. Jenna’s twenty-three now, which means her trust fund is accessible – and due to her diagnosis, I have control over her finances. It’s a lot of money, which can guarantee the best treatment at the best places: and one of the best facilities in the country is in Vermont.
It’s a beautiful place. Lots to do, lots of staff, lots of green grass. Jenna’s days are full, and they keep her stable. Maybe one day she can live with me again, and commute during the days. And the most important part: it’s close enough to the Hammel Institute that we have trained meta-humans on hand to help if her power gets too much for her.
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I’m twenty-seven. Sometimes I feel older. I have a sister I never see, and one that I see twice a week. I have a mother I may never see again. I have a job in a music shop in Pilot’s Ridge, and I also have a part-time cleaning job at Hammel. I have an apartment. I even have a car.
For the first time, I have a life – and it’s my own.Behind the M A S K . . .Name: Sandrine
Age: Twenties
RP Experience: A good few years!
How did you find us?: Caution 2.0Show your S K I L L S . . .
Please see Jonah King!
