It had been three months since Micah and I moved in. All of us still figuring out what that meant, building routines, settling into a new normal. I had never been happier in my life.
The doorbell rang, and then came the Wade clan letting themselves in with their usual noise.
“Hey, Alyssa. Jules, where do you want the, oh my God.” Simone stopped mid-sentence. The bag of snacks in her arms dropped to the floor. “Julian. That’s.”
“Pops’s piano.” Tre finished it for her, coming in behind her with an armful of drinks. He pulled up so short that Raschad walked into his back, Zaria on his hip, Zhaire tearing past all of them yelling for Micah.
“Damn.” Zion exhaled, arriving with Taryn. “Haven’t seen this thing in years.”
“Too long,” Julian said.
The house filled up fast after that. Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Reggie, Khaz and Khairos, Marlowe and Zenobia, Kendra talking about a case before she’d even set her bag down, kids racing through the halls like they’d been released from a cage. Excited chaos and all, everybody drifted to the piano like it had its own gravity.
“Lord have mercy.” Aunt Lorraine came at it with slow steps. “I thought I’d never lay eyes on this beautiful thing again.”
Tre moved toward it slow, like it was sacred. His fingers traced the inscription twice, then his hands hovered over the keys without landing.
“It’s even prettier than I remembered.” Simone sniffled and hugged him from the side.
“Look at that mother of pearl,” Khaz said. “Craftsmanship is unreal.”
“Y’all remember how Mama got this made for him?” Zion was already grinning. “She told Pops she’d taken up collecting rare orchids. Had a whole story. Special soil, special pots, a greenhouse two towns over. For damn near two years, that man handed over money every few weeks for orchids he never once laid eyes on, talking about how glad he was she found a hobby that made her happy.”
He laughed.
“Wasn’t a single orchid. She banked every dollar and had his piano built. Man paid for his own Christmas present.”
“He cried when she surprised him with it,” Tre reminisced. “Sat right down and played ‘This Christmas’ and sang it, and we all fell apart.”
“Remember how he used to play for hours?” Simone added. “He’d sit right there working out melodies and we’d all gather around just to listen.”
“That’s how we all learned to play,” Zion said.
“No, Pops taught us instruments before then, Z. But that’s when we really got good at piano.” Tre corrected.
“Mama would join in sometimes.” Simone’s eyes were wet. “When Daddy got stuck on a bridge or couldn’t find the right chord. She couldn’t play like him, but she had this way of humming a harmony line that would unlock whatever he was reaching for.”
Khairos stepped forward, his voice soft. “I remember staying over one weekend when they were working on that song. What was it called?”
“‘Midnight Rain,’” Julian said.
“I remember that night.” Zion smiled. “We were all begging him to stop so we could sleep, and he was in the zone.”
“That the one Uncle Zay got Song of the Year for?”
“That’s the one,” Uncle Reggie nodded. “He played the same four bars over and over for a week straight until he got that bridge right.”
“Pops in the zone was unstoppable,” Tre said. “He’d get this look on his face like he was hearing something the rest of us couldn’t.”
“He was,” Aunt Lorraine said. “That man had a direct line to something beautiful. Him and Niecy both. It flowed through them like water.”
The room went quiet, everybody somewhere else for a second.
“She’d be so happy to see it out here again.” Aunt Lorraine put her hand on Julian’s shoulder. “Where it’s meant to be.”
Julian nodded. Then he cleared his throat. “All right. Enough nostalgia. Y’all ready for karaoke?”
The next hour and a half went by in singing and laughing. Tre had the microphone hostage for three songs straight with no sign of letting it go.
