She handed over the cameras, and Laura took them and nodded without looking up.
My stepmom hasn’t said a word about my music since. She barely even looks at the piano now.
And me? Every time I play now, it feels louder. I don’t do it out of spite, but out of something deeper, something like pride.
It’s like every note pulls my mom back into the room with me.
That night, as Sarah was leaving, I walked her to her car.
“Thank you,” I said, choking on the words.
“I didn’t know what to do.”
She hugged me tight.
“You don’t have to fight these battles alone, sweetheart. Not when I’m around.”
We stood there for a moment in the driveway, under the porch light.
“You really took those cameras at four in the morning?” I asked, smiling for the first time in days.
She chuckled. “Like a ghost in the night!”
“You could’ve gotten caught.”
“But I didn’t,” she said, winking.
“And besides, some things are worth the risk.”
I nodded, looking back at the house.
“She’ll never mess with that piano again.”
“No,” Sarah said, climbing into her car. “She won’t.”
Then she paused and looked at me through the window.
“And you? You keep playing, Jason.
Loud enough for the whole world to hear.”
And I did.
My aunt taught Laura a lesson: you don’t mess with what someone loves, especially when it’s all they have left.
