All I Have

Chapter 16 ~ The Fairytale of New York (or an Old Alanian Ballroom)

Jesse shouts after me, but his words are cut off by the speed at which I throw myself out of my chair abandoning my shoes on the marble, and pelt towards the stairs. As ungraceful as it makes them look, my father and mother are close behind, with Jesse and Asher on their heels.

Completely unaware of what's happening, agents are flying up the stairs behind us, shoes slapping the ground and the sound of radios cackling as they try to work out the reason for my unplanned escape.

We pass Lars and a maid on the staircase carrying my sleeping siblings up to their room for the night. Startled, he calls after my mother who shouts that she has no idea where we're going, but she'll be back soon. By the time we reach the top floor, all of us are panting, the men's suits ruffled and mum and I's dresses pulled up to our knees so we don't trip.

In a mismatched bundle of weird family, we spill into the ballroom, so long out of use, with only a tiny piano in the corner and a chandelier that only gives out small gentle glows of orange light. The piano is smaller than the one downstairs, and the lid, for some unusual reason, is tightly closed.

I approach it slowly, as if it were a bomb, expecting my hopes to be crushed any second. I press a delicate ivory key with my index finger, and a clean note rings out. My heart sinks. As Jesse begins to understand what I'm doing, he hooks his hand under the lid of the piano, struggling under its weight. With absolutely no clue what's happening, Asher puts his hand just underneath a slight chip in the paint and begins to push the lids above their heads.

'God I hope there isn't a dead puppy in there.' Dad groans.

'What?' Asher says, his surprise turning his voice into a shout.

His hand slips and the lid of the piano clatters onto the floor, bursting our eardrums but luckily not breaking anything else. Jesse and Asher go to massage their sore hands and in doing so, move away from the exposed piano. I'm a few feet away, not daring to move an inch in case this was all some beautiful coincidence.

But my dad being a foot taller than me gasps and puts a hand to his mouth in surprise. I step forward silently and peer over the side, directly looking at a little Santa sack with uneven edges where our presents are hidden. Jesse steps back, almost understanding what he's just found. He doesn't know that they're our Christmas presents from the year Chris died, but he knows Chris has been here and left something for us, and it's enough to excuse himself from the room, wishing us a Merry Christmas.

He takes a second to whisper the situation to the agents that followed us, and they all back quietly and respectfully from the room under Jesse's instruction. I look at him, almost desperate for him to stay, to save the room for being so painfully silent, but also thankful that he knows exactly what this broken family needs right now.

I stand, frozen, staring at the broken piano. Dad moves first, gently rocking the package from side to side to slide it out from between the panels of hand carved wood. Something clinks and we exchange a look. Asher sits on the stool a little out of the way and watches us in silence as the three of us, what's left of our family, just me, mum and dad sit around the bag dad lays down.

Mum takes my hand and I can already see tears on her cheeks, whereas dad's face is stern, his jaw locked as if trying to keep his composure. I don't know that I'm holding my breath until my head starts spinning.

I reach out my hand and untie the knot holding the bag closed, and as I do, small wrapped parcels spill across the tiled floor, red and gold paper with bows awkwardly covering all sides. I smile because Chris was hopeless at wrapping gifts and there's shiny tape everywhere, rips in the paper and apologies written in wonky handwriting in what I imagine was my silver gel pen from when I was nine.