vacation home

My grandmother's ancestral house stood waiting, frozen in time. Inside, dusty vinyl records held Kannadasan's devotional poems, their words waiting to breathe again through practiced voices. She'd left me classical music lessons unfinished, her tanpura silent for years. That vacation, I returned. My fingers found the strings, trembling at first, then remembering. Neighbors gathered on the veranda, drawn by forgotten melodies. Their applause meant nothing compared to this: restoring what she'd built, feeling our shared lineage pulse through every note. The house wasn't empty anymore. We were home.