This is us. Sixteen years later.
PC: @garyschapman
My husband, seemingly drawn by its gravitational pull, slips unnoticed onto the bench. His hands hover lightly over the keys. From my vantage point behind the kitchen sink, dirty dish in hand, I catch a glimpse of his head, slightly bent in reverence. Or is it in prayer? Maybe defeat from the work day behind him?
Our eyes meet, a silent conversation in a glance. “Do you mind if I play?” he asks, his voice carrying a mixture of apology and need.
I hesitate, caught between craving silence as I tackle dinnertime and yearning to hear the melodies that speak of his inner world. The world that feels so far away from my own these days. My husband has a way of transforming tension into harmony through Chopin’s ballads as effortlessly as one might dissolve worries with a brisk run or a gripping novel.
The grand piano in all its majesty, waits for my reply.
A flicker of indecision passes over me, yet I find myself nodding, “sure” through gritted teeth. Because despite my craving for quiet, the sound of him playing, the way the music fills our home, chasing away my own frustrations, is a daily reminder of the beauty we’ve built together around this very instrument.
I didn’t always feel this way.
The first purchase my husband made for our new home wasn’t beds or even a dining room table, he bought a piano, a grand piano, an original 1895 Steinway & Sons. I objected of course, and made excuses - the room is too small, the house not grand enough. In my narrow view of the family unit, I believed that a dining table was supposed to be the place we gathered each evening. Purchasing a piano meant saying no to a table. Those things which I believed were essential to our family, were not a priority for him.
How was I to know that a mere year down the road, this massive, 900-pound inanimate object would be the tie that bound us together as a family most evenings?
“Come play Mendelssohn with me,” my husband beckons to the piano, while my son escapes downstairs after his own piano lesson. I squeeze half my body onto the bench next to him and our shoulders kiss. My closest arm wraps around his back and holds his side while the other finds its position. After sixteen years of marriage, we find romance while glued together on a bench that only holds half a cheek. I take a deep breath and begin to count the rhythm in whispers aloud 1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6 as we begin our duet.
