home for the holiday

I cleaned the empty upstairs before the family came for Thanksgiving and discovered boxes and binders of baseball cards and stamp collections in the boys' closet.
The youngest boy says that it all belongs to his brothers, but  he assured me, "The baseball cards are valuable, really."
I put the boy treasures back on the shelf and closed the closet door.

Mr. Vale use to tune our piano in November- every year, right before the holidays.
After the tuning the children would play their pieces for Mr. Vale and he was pleased.
So-the children moved away, the piano hasn't been tuned in years.
But Mercy came home for Thanksgiving and she made music on our neglected piano, thumping the sticky keys, she played -and I was pleased.

And one evening, right before the family dispersed, I heard man feet walking on the hardwood floors upstairs.  It was Brett and his big man feet!  I thought about the four boys who use to live up their, who grew up to be men-and I was pleased.