The Way We Get By

14 // Liam

"That's some intense playing you're doing," I remark as I step into the sunroom.

Ramona stops playing when she hears me, the intense melody cut off and hanging in the air as a result of the abrupt ending.

"It's better than smoking, isn't it?"

She pushes her body around in her piano stool and watches as I step over to the side of her piano.

"I suppose." I lean my elbows on top of the piano. The top of the grand is closed and it allows me a place to rest my weight. "The nicotine gum working okay?"

She reaches forward and ruffles some of her sheet music while making a mark on one of the papers.

"It's sufficient."

My tired eyes move around the sunroom and I feel my body take in a deep breath.

The sunroom is a beautiful, sleek room that's located right off of the entrance hall of our house. It has large windows covering the left wall with Ramona's piano centered right in the middle of the cozy room.

I'd set this room aside specifically for her when we bought the house all those years ago. We were a few years fresh out of college with only a year of marriage under our belts, and Ramona was pregnant with the twins.

We were young, excited, terrified—anticipating our future in this beautiful house and waiting for the arrival of our boys.

So why she insisted on painting the walls of the sunroom black, I don't know. It's always been too dark of a color for my liking, but she loves it. She says that black is the absence of color, and darkness is what all beauty and creativity are born from.

But she made these black walls work, in some magical sort of way. The room doesn't feel sad or dark. It still feels warm and pleasant, a place where her incredible playing always wafts from. Her playing illuminates our house every time she practices, and the way it floats through the rooms with a gentle hum calms me.

Despite the fact that I'm the kind of person who's never been talented in music or been particularly fond of the classical genre, her playing has most definitely become one of my favorite feelings throughout the years.

I pull up a chair next to Ramona's piano, the shiny metal top becoming the resting place for my head. I put my head down on the top and let out an exhausted, deep breath.

It's something everyone in the house has done before—resting their head on Ramona's piano and listening to her melodic playing, feeling the vibrations of the notes. Angel's done it, Lucy's done it, and even Alex. I've fallen asleep a few times, if I'm being honest.

"Tired?"

I mumble something incoherent among the lines of 'yes', and after a quiet chuckle Ramona resumes her playing, a softer and more calming melody this time.

I focus my mind on my breathing and try to release the stress that I've been holding in these past few weeks with each breath. The subtle vibrations tickle at my face and move around me like thick, blanketed clouds that warm my skin and slow my heart rate to one that almost makes it favorable to fall asleep right here.

"I like this one," I murmur, my voice quiet and a low mutter against the piano's grand, yet soft sound.

"I know you do."

Her playing continues for another moment, though she gently ends her playing in the middle of the piece. I mentally frown, upset that she'd stop the piece before my favorite part.

"You okay?"

My heavy, weighted eyelids force themselves open as the light from the outside world floods back in.