"Daaaaad?"
I hear Brooke's voice and quick footsteps echoing up and down the halls. I've been telling Melody for years that the penthouse is too big for a family of three, but she insists that there are too many memories here to move.
"I'm in my office, honey," I call back.
Within seconds, Brooke enters the room. She drops her backpack onto the floor and flops onto the sofa. Her pale blonde hair is still damp and I can smell the faint scent of chlorine all the way from my desk.
I check my phone and raise a brow. "What are you doing home so early? Doesn't practice end at five?"
She sighs and rolls her eyes. "I wanna quit, swimming isn't fun anymore," she groans and sinks further into the sofa, resting her feet on my new wooden coffee table.
"Feet off the table," I say sternly.
Brooke gives me an innocent grin and sits back up. "Anyways, I just need you to sign this form so I can quit." She digs through her bag and takes out a crumpled yellow form.
I frown as she places it on my desk and looks at me expectantly. She's almost filled the entire form herself already, the only thing left is a blank line for a parent's signature.
I tiredly drag my hand down my face. "Let me talk to mom about this first after she gets home from work." Although I'm sure I already know how that's going to go.
She shakes her head. "No need. I texted her on my way home and she said it's fine."
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. "Still, we're going to talk about this later. Go do your homework."
-----
"You've raised an eight year old princess," I grumble as Melody comes into the room.
"Well hello to you too," she chuckles as she sits down at her vanity and begins removing her jewelry. "What are you talking about?"
"You're way too easy on her."
I never in a million years thought that I'd end up being the stricter parent between the two of us. It's been like this ever since Brooke learned to talk.
Melody briefly glances at me in the mirror and shrugs. "I disagree. I just don't want to pressure her into doing things she doesn't want to do."
"That's the understatement of the century and you know it," I groan.
Since Brooke was four, she's quit ballet, soccer, gymnastics, violin, clarinet, pottery, painting, and now swimming - all after less than a couple months.
Melody's lip pulls into a tight line and she's silent for a bit.
I lightly tap the space next to me on the sofa. She comes over and sits down with a sigh. "I just... don't want to be like my mom, you know?" she says softly and rests her head against my shoulder.
"I understand, of course," I reassure her. I place my arm around her and gently stroke her shoulder with my thumb. "But you're taking it too far, Mel. She needs to be held accountable for at least some things in her life."
Melody nods slightly. "Let's talk to her tonight."
-----
"I hate you!"
Melody winces as we hear Brooke's muffled shout after she's slammed her bedroom door behind her.
"Where did she get that attitude from?" Melody groans and buries her face into my chest.
I decide to hold my tongue - it's painfully clear where her attitude came from, but the last thing Melody needs right now is an I told you so. I gently stroke her back.
"It'll be ok once she calms down," I murmur against her hair.
Melody turns back around and looks at Brooke's closed door covered with butterfly and unicorn stickers. She chews nervously on her lip and quickly turns back to me. "Maybe we were too harsh."
I drag my hand through my hair and shake my head. "All we said was that she couldn't quit," I grumble.
There's no way in hell I'd consider any of that conversation to be harsh. Melody phrased it as gently as humanly possible and Brooke still threw a tantrum. That's definitely on Brooke, not Melody.
Melody leans against my chest. "Should we try talking to her again?"
I shake my head. "No, I'm sure that would make it worse." Brooke definitely takes after me, I was apparently quite the tyrant as a child. After fights, I would get even more upset if my parents tried talking to me before I was ready to talk again and we'd be back to square one.
Melody doesn't need to know that right now though.
-----
I lay on the sofa in Melody's office, propped up by one of her neon pink fluffy pillows. Her taste in interior design hasn't evolved much since we met, but I still find the mismatched decorations to be very charming.
Melody sits in the center of the room at her grand piano – she's been there for hours now. I don't recognize the piece she's playing, but it's dreary and sullen. It's giving me an overwhelming sense of sadness, but I know better than to interrupt her when she's in the zone.
"Mom? Dad?" we hear a soft voice call.
We both turn to the doorway. Brooke is cautiously peeking in, partially hiding behind the door.
"Come in, honey," Melody says softly as she joins me on the sofa.
I sit up and Brooke sits in the gap between us. She keeps her gaze focused down on her lap and fidgets with her thumbs while swinging her right leg back and forth – the exact way Melody does when she's nervous. I find it fascinating how so many of her little mannerisms are identical to Melody's.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. She slowly looks up at us. I can already see the tears threatening to spill out of her shiny blue eyes. "I don't hate you."
"We know you don't," Melody says softly. "We just want to talk to you."
She nods wordlessly.
"I understand wanting to quit when an activity isn't fun anymore, but it's important to have discipline, Brooke," I explain.
She looks at me thoughtfully. "But mom is ok with it," Brooke points out, "and you both always say you want the best for me."
Melody softly sighs. "That's true, but I shouldn't have let you quit things so quickly, it's not a good habit. That's my fault," she admits.
"We do want the best for you," I say. "We want you to grow up to be determined, responsible, and diligent."
"I get it, I think," Brooke says slowly. She pauses to think for a moment. "So what happens now?"
"Next time, make sure it's an activity you really want to do before you bring it up to us," I say. "If we sign you up, it has to be something you can make a commitment to."
"Even if it gets tough, we want you to push through and give it a fair shot," Melody says. "That's the most important part."
Brooke nods and sits up straighter. "Ok, I will."
"If you still don't want to do it after that, you can quit," Melody adds. "We just need to see that you really tried your best."
"Ok, I'll do that, I promise." Brooke stretches her little arms out to pull us into a hug.
"Thanks Brooke, we love you," Melody whispers.
"I love you too," she murmurs.
Once we've released Brooke from the hug, she points over to the piano. "That was Brahms' Rhapsody, right, Mom?"
Melody looks taken aback but slowly nods. "Yes, how did you know?"
"I heard you playing it before," she explains. "I could only sort of hear it through the door so I looked at the book afterwards."
Brooke has loved Melody's music since she was a baby, luckily we found out that it was one of the few ways to calm her down when she'd cry.
I've always found it adorable when I find the two of them in Melody's office. Brooke loves listening to her play. She happily bounces around the room when the songs are bright and cheerful, and sits closely with Melody on the bench when the songs are slow and gentle. I've never brought it up, but I've noticed that Melody never plays sad sounding songs when Brooke is in the room.
"I see," Melody says softly.
"I liked it so I tried playing it while you guys weren't home one time," she continues. "Grandma was sleeping."
I make a mental note to remind Melody's mom, again, to stay awake and actually watch our child while she's babysitting.
I stare at her in bewilderment. "You did what?"
Her cheeks turn pink. "Sorry, I know I'm not supposed to touch mom's piano."
"No, it's not that," Melody quickly says and rests her hand over Brooke's. "Do you know how to sight read, Brooke?"
She furrows her brows together and shrugs. "I don't know what that means."
Melody takes Brooke's hand and leads her over to the piano. They sit together on the bench, and Melody flips through the pages of one of the books stacked on the piano. She picks a song and places it on the book stand. "Have you heard of this song?" Melody asks, pointing at the name.
Brooke quickly shakes her head.
"Could you..." she begins cautiously, "try playing it for us, honey?"
She nods and carefully hovers her hands over the keys.
Melody and I watch in absolute disbelief as our daughter, who we've never even seen touch a piano, begins playing the song nearly perfectly.
-----
"Mel, she's clearly just as talented as you were at her age," I say, dragging my hand through my hair. I avoid using the word prodigy, knowing Mel still hates it. "We've put her into a million different activities, why has piano never been one?"
Melody doesn't say anything and just stares at the walls of her office, lined with countless awards and framed photos from over the years. After she retired from performing, Melody wanted to toss all of them, but I insisted she keep them. I suggested she keep them in here as a reminder of her growth, rather than a way to show off. She eventually agreed, although we've rented out a storage unit to store the remaining awards that couldn't even fit in her office.
I sigh and pull Melody into a tight hug. "You're not like your mom," I murmur against her hair. "It won't hurt to just ask Brooke if she's interested."
"My mom started by just asking me too, Cole," Melody mumbles into my chest.
"Let's give it some thought," I suggest. "But I'll leave the final decision to you."
-----
Brooke's door is slightly ajar. Melody knocks softly as we peek inside. "Can we come in?" she asks.
Brooke is laying on her bed, reading a book. She sits up when she sees us. "Sure... am I in trouble?" she asks hesitantly.
"Of course not, honey," I reassure her, "we just wanted to ask you something." Melody and I take a seat on the sofa, and Brooke scoots to the edge of her bed to face us.
Melody's grip on my hand tightens as she begins to speak. "W-we, um, we..." she stammers. I gently stroke the back of her hand with my thumb. She looks at me and I give her an encouraging smile. I feel her grip slightly loosen. "Brooke... we were wondering if you'd be interested in taking piano lessons."
Brooke's eyes light up. "Really?" she gasps. "Yes!" We don't even have time to respond before she hops off her bed and onto the sofa with us. She buries her face into Melody's shoulder and pulls her into a hug. "I'm excited!"
In hindsight, Brooke has always seemed quite drawn to piano. I guess Melody and I have both subconsciously been trying to ignore the signs.
Melody still has tons of connections in the classical music industry and is constantly being sent free tickets to concerts. Brooke's favourite always seem to be ones with piano.
We have parental controls set on Brooke's Spotify account and we've seen her playlists. The vast majority of the songs are piano music.
Even as a baby, Brooke was always crawling towards the piano and trying to climb onto the bench by herself.
"I'm sorry I didn't ask earlier," Melody says.
"It's ok, I get it," she says. "You had a bad time with piano, and you didn't want the same thing to happen to me."
I raise an eyebrow. Melody and I have done our best to avoid mentioning much of her past to Brooke. It's a lot to unload onto a child, and we decided it was better to hold off until she was older and could understand properly. As far as I know, neither of us have told her the full story.
"Brooke... how much do you know about my life when I was young?" Melody asks hesitantly.
"Um, most of it, I think, " she mumbles and furrows her brows together. "You were a really famous piano player since you were little and then had a meltdown. You went into hiding for a long time. Then you met dad and had a big reveal before you quit performing and bought the music school."
I can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. We've been vague with Brooke about all of this for her whole life. We thought it worked, she never questioned the massive penthouse, expensive piano, books published by Melody, and awards – most of which were moved to Melody's office after Brooke was born. It looks like we went through all of that trouble for nothing.
"How long have you known?" I ask.
"A few years?" She giggles when she sees our looks of confused shock. "I have the internet, you know."
I chuckle and give her hair an endearing ruffle. I always wondered why she never asked us to sign her up for piano. It's all starting to make sense; based on her reaction, I'm sure she's wanted to take lessons for a long time now. Despite that, she knew what Melody went through. She didn't want to make Melody worry about her and never asked.
It hits me how lucky I am to have a daughter as caring and considerate as Brooke.
-----
"Welcome back, Mel." I immediately pull Melody into a tight hug the moment she walks through the front door. "How was your trip?"
She stands up on her toes to give me a kiss. "Great, the school is just about complete."
Her music school has expanded rapidly over the last couple of years. Last I checked, Cristofi music school has five locations across the country – this one will be the sixth.
"How have the piano lessons been going?" Melody asks.
"Brooke seems to be loving them," I chuckle. We've just about reached the two month mark – a new personal record for Brooke. "Wait till you hear her play, she's amazing compared to the last time you heard her."
She raises an eyebrow. "Really? I've only been gone a couple days."
I bite my tongue to stop myself from telling her about the surprise. I've been waiting for what feels like forever and the anticipation is killing me.
I wordlessly take Melody's hand and lead her down the hall towards her office. The door is shut, but we can hear the muffled sound of Brooke practicing inside. We were planning to buy Brooke her own piano, but she insisted she wanted to share Melody's – not that we mind of course.
"Listen," I whisper.
Melody presses her ear against the door and listens for a moment before a heartwarming smile stretches across her face.
"Do you recognize the song?" I ask.
"Of course," she says softly. "It's Cole."
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A/N:
I really wanted to explore how Mel and Cole would be as parents. This sounded just about right to me 😂Thanks for reading!