A Family Reunion

(A short story in response to my writing group's prompt of the week, "miss it all.")
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There was a long, unscheduled power outage that night. There were no emergency lights, so the house was pitch black for a few minutes. Someone lit a candle and placed it at the center of the dinner table. The flame momentarily flickered as if it was going to die, but somehow managed to survive the wind’s little tickle.

It’s been hours since they’d finished eating, but no one had left the room. Still gathered around the dinner table, they could barely see the faces of those seated across them. They didn’t seem to mind. Ah, there wasn't a smidgen of doubt that it was going to be one of those long nights.

She stepped out for a few minutes to get her luggage from which she took a Scrabble board. The week before, they reminded her to bring one with her on that trip. There was unanimous cheering when they saw that she remembered. She gently placed it on the table, next to the candle.

The board was far from fancy. She was going to leave it with them so that they’d have something to use in that house when they visit. She owned a nice travel version where the tiles remained in place even if you turned the board upside down, but they didn’t like that one. They found it rather inconvenient – “The tiles are too small!” “The racks are too unwieldy!” “It’s too much work to remove the tiles!” – yet no one complained about the tiles always being in disarray when they played on a big cardboard version, the same kind that she brought with her this time.

Somewhere in the dark, someone produced a yellow piece of paper and a red ballpoint pen. And so began their battle of words. Not very long into the game, one of them played holster for 76 points. Another immediately added soldier for 81. She was just as skilled at Scrabble as them, but it seemed to her that everyone was playing the best game of their lives. She remembered what their friends would usually say while watching them play: “They play for blood!” “Blood in the water! The Scrabble sharks are out!” “They’ll crush your ego to smithereens.”

“Indeed,” she thought. Dreadingly awaiting her turn, she fiddled with her tiles and began singing a song from Sondheim’s Into the Woods: “Agony!/ Beyond power of speech/ When the one thing you want/ Is the only thing out of your reach…/ Agony! Oh the torture they teach....”

They laughed. The song was quite apropos – there were no more tiles in the bag to draw, and her remaining tiles were mostly vowels. They were already talking about playing another round. “Bloodhounds!” she retorted. The victors snickered in response.

“You’ll miss it all,” one of them tenderly replied. She knew it was going to be a while before she could play Scrabble with her siblings again.

Almost a year had passed. She glanced at the calendar, then the flight itinerary in her inbox. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Time to practice.