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Rio woke up to the sounds of a storm. Thunder, wind, and rain hammering the outside of the house, rattling the windows.
As Rio’s head began to clear, he realizes Elizabeth isn’t in bed. He glances to the en suite. However, there’s no light coming from it. He stretches an arm out to her spot to find it still warm.
Rio sits up against the headboard, trying to find his bearings, his body still heavy with sleep. With the occasional flashes of lightning from outside, he takes in the rumpled bed and clothes that’d flung off of them the night before neatly folded on the reading chair in the corner of the room.
Figuring he’d find her in the kitchen, probably stress baking, concerned about how her kids are doing during the storm while they’re at their dad’s. Rio slips out of the bed, quickly fetches out sweat pants and a shirt from his drawer, and slides them on.
And right before he approaches the stairs, he hears the sound of something else: through the din of the storm, he hears the sounds of a piano carrying on the wind coming from the room at the far end of the corridor.
Following the notes, as they drift through the house, Rio slowly walks to the room. He finds the door slightly ajar, but open enough for him to see Elizabeth sat in the open expanse of the space, sitting behind the spinet piano.
She’s wearing her red and cream floral printed robe. Her fingers drift across the piano keys, carefully picking out the notes while she listens keenly for their tone, their warmth, where they lead, and where she wants to follow. Her fingers move fluently but thoughtfully, like someone who’s returned to a familiar place after many years. She begins to weave in counterpoint and texture, layers the crisp highs with the sonorous lows, chasing the sounds across the scales.
And even though her back is to Rio, she looks as though the music is pouring from her soul.
The lightning strikes again, and the thunder roars loud, but Elizabeth keeps playing, unbothered. Her shoulders relaxed. A certain lax to them he doesn’t think he’d seen before.
And shit. He’d known she used to play way back when. Had kept that piece about her locked away in its own little chamber in his head when her sister had dropped it that one time. But he hadn’t thought about the detail too much, though. Elizabeth had never talked to him about, never mentioned it much to him.
Except for the time she’d been thinking about buying the piano. When they’d been looking at houses at first, this was the first one they fell for. Initially, he thought Elizabeth might be hesitant about it, he'd thought she’d complain about the extra room. Which she had, but not for long though. Because she’d come to him that night showing him pictures online of pianos, asking which one he thought would fit best, shyly scrolling through the photos. And maybe, vaguely at least, he had an idea as to why she’s discussing this with him, but he asked anyway. And Elizabeth told him that she’d like to have one in the extra room if they did settle on the house.
But she hadn’t played it ever since they moved in. He hadn’t seen or heard her playing, at least.
There’s a brief interlude in which the music stops, and Rio watches as Elizabeth leans over the piano, he’s not sure what she's doing. Rio leans on the door jamb, stunned, careful not to emit any sounds, folding his arms.
The notes hit his ears again. The somber tune, something classical he recognizes, pretty sure he’d played it himself on the guitar before, but he couldn’t name it.
The next time the thunder roars, louder and angrier, and she misses a note, and the sound is sour, broke, a noise that doesn’t belong. She stops, starts again, and tries the run, again hitting the wrong note. Another thunderclap makes her flinch.
“’Ey, you okay?” he suddenly speaks.
“Jesus!”
Elizabeth jumps, and Rio feels an instant flash of guilt. She turns to look at him, a tentative movement accompanied by the low rumbling from the piano as her fingers drag across the keys and come to rest on her thighs. She considers Rio, smiling softly at him before reaching for the bourbon resting on top of the piano. She sips from it, and Rio clocks the soft sigh that escapes her.
“Sorry,” he apologizes, stepping into the room and walking to towards her, standing behind the piano bench.
“You’re up,” Elizabeth notes, tilting her head up to look at him, “why?”
“It’s three in the mornin’, I could ask you the same thing,”—he takes a seat beside her on the bench—“So?”
Elizabeth doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she places the drink back on top of the piano and her fingers begin to move languidly across the keys once again, thin and slender melting into the ivory. Whatever she’s drawing from the keys seems to hold him. A river of bittersweet emotion that makes him itch a bit. Rio tries to read her face, see if he could pick up on something, and what he sees is a single tear tracking down her cheek.
He feels the urge to do something but feels constricted, the air’s so soft around them and—fuck, he doesn’t know anything, just feels that something’s eating away at her but what it might be is beyond his recollection. So he places a kiss on her shoulder.
“The storm woke me up,” she finally says. “Did I wake you?”
“Nah, it was the storm,” Rio says. “The baby upright pulled through, huh?”
Elizabeth chuckles. “Mhm. Not for long, though,” she says. “My mother ended up selling it not a month after my father left us.”
There’s a bitter end to her words, and it feels as though there’s much more on the tip of her tongue. Like the beginning, middle, and end of a story she wants to tell, but she’s hesitant. Rio can see her mull it over in her head.
“One night, Annie’d been up crying, unable to sleep because of the storm,”
Another tear tracks down her face, and she sniffles, and he listens intently.
“That was the same night dad left us,” she tells him, swallowing, “I saw him leave, with his bags and all. I knew he won’t be coming back, but...I had faintly hoped that he was just working. I kept thinking that for so, so long and—” she trails off, and clenches her fists.
Rio is unsure of how to respond, which mostly boils down to the fact that he had never seen her like this. And hell, he’d gotten to know her in many ways, but this—this part of her, she’d never offered. And he’d never pushed to know either, figured she’d tell him whenever she’s comfortable to. And now, she’s putting all her cards on the table face-up, exposed and all he can do is listen.
“And the only thing that had calmed Annie—and me—down was the piano,” she says, laughing softly. “And every night after that, playing the piano was the only thing that worked, for her and me. At least up until we sold it.”
Rio nods, his left hand reaching out to gently cup her cheek. Feeling the wetness of her tears, he strokes his thumb and presses his lips to her temple. “The storm wasn’t what woke you up, huh?”
“Sometimes I worry about the kids. What if Dean doesn’t pick them up on switchover day?” one of Elizabeth’s hands reaches out to clutch his shirt. “What if you don’t make it home one day? What if I don’t?” her voice fully breaks, she’s crying now. Rio wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her close. Elizabeth rests her chin on his shoulder, her hand still holding his shirt.
And shit. That same fear had lived in his veins, like a constant hammer on the head. And it’s gotten worse when the what-ifs had gotten bigger, heavier. And he’d known it’d weighed on her too, by her frantic baking sprees, by the bags under her eyes when Rio comes home after a week away for a meeting. But fuck—he hadn’t known how much she struggled with it, and the piano is how she’s quieting her monsters down.
“I’m sorry,” Rio whispers in her ear, tightening his hold on her, he runs a hand through her hair. “They’ll always have us, Elizabeth.” He assures her, ignoring any and all sounds telling him it’s untrue because the taste other statement leaves on his tongue is sweet, makes him feel better, lighter and he hopes it does the same to her.
They stay quiet for a moment. The rain taps on the window in a pitter-patter. Eventually, the noise lessens and the drops faded into a musical chime, and it’s when she parts away from him.
“Play me something else?” Rio suggests. Elizabeth looks at him for a moment, the corners of her mouth quirk up, slightly, as she nods.
Elizabeth places her fingers on the keys and starts playing a faster classical piece. The sound envelopes them once again, cocooning them.
He’s transfixed by the melody Elizabeth’s playing, by how effortlessly the notes flow from her fingertips because just as soon as it started, the song finishes with a final trill of a songbird and a gentle arpeggio flourish.
She turns back to him, her eyes sleepy. “Wanna go back to bed?” He asks and she nods.
Soon they’re nestled beneath the covers, and Rio’s got her flush against his chest, keeping her to him, and she’s tracing her fingers up and down his forearms.
“I’ll never leave, not if I can help it.”