Christmas Lights

8.

"Bad news," Ma said as she came into the living room where the four of us were decorating the Christmas tree, "The girls are snowed in until morning, in Denver so looks like we'll be all alone for Christmas Eve."

"Darn." I said with fake enthusiasm "We'll have to live without their clucking for another 24 hours."

"Derek." Ma warned, she sighed as she looked over the tree "Well that is just lovely."

"Thank you." I smirked as I gave Meredith a wink "We have excellent helpers." I lifted Kennedy up so she could hang a bulb she was holding on an upper branch, "Good job."

"Pwetty!" she squealed and clapped.

"I see that, what a beautiful job." Ma beamed, "I think there's one more box of ornaments in the back room, and would you mind getting it?"

"Of course." I smiled as I set Kennedy down, then glanced subtly at Meredith "Mer, can you help me?"

She looked to almost blush a little as she nodded and followed me into the back room. I felt like a teenager again who was sneaking away to steal a kiss as I pulled her in the door and crashed my lips against hers. She giggled as she kissed me back, her tiny hands finding their way around my neck and fingers flaking into the back of my hair.

"This isn't the job we were told to do."

"I know." I smirked as I pecked her lips "But this is my reward for doing it."

She giggled and turned from me before things got any more heated to investigate the room for the box of ornaments. It was an old bedroom that we never used now that all of us were grown, Ma used it as a storage room for old furniture and ornament boxes now... I reached up and pulled a suspicious box off a shelf and sighed contently as my suspicions proved right.

"Mer I found it." I said, I heard no response and turned to see her engrossed on pulling the sheet off an old piano "Mer?"

"It's beautiful." She whispered as she ran her fingers over the keys, letting one drop and make a high pitched ping.

"Yeah." I said looking directly at her "it is.."

"It was my grandmother's." we heard in the doorway and saw Ma standing there holding Kennedy, "Derek's father insisted we bring it out here in hopes that either I or one of our daughters would learn how to play...Derek wouldn't sit still long enough, we knew that right off the bat." She sighed at the light jab she made at me "But I didn't have time for lessons and the girls didn't want to...so here it sits, all these years...untouched."

"How sad." Meredith pouted as she moved to the bench and sat down "Piano's are made to be played."

"By people who know what they're doing preferably." I laughed, she suddenly raised her brow as if I had just offered her a challenge.

I opened my mouth but before I could make a sound, she placed her fingers on the keys and softly started playing Beethoven's fifth. Ma stepped next to me as we both watched her with dropped jaw's and in awe...her face hardly made any movement at all as her fingers danced across the keys and the room fluttered with the sound of a beautiful melody. She looked like she'd been playing for years-how did I not know this?

Come to think of it, there was a hell of a lot that I didn't know. Maybe I was rushing things, maybe this was going somewhere it shouldn't. The music stopped softly and Ma started clapping beside me, I quickly joined with an expression of awe.

"Bravo!" she sniffled "Oh that was beautiful, I always hoped my son would bring someone with such a beautiful musical talent into our family."

I felt the tickle inside me again as my mother's statement didn't shake me, or worry me, or make me want to run...if anything, it delighted me.