Edward and his Daughter

From the first moment I saw her I knew a kind of love I had never even dreamed I could feel, that between a father and his daughter. Now life with Renesmee and Bella fills my days and nights and I've never been happier.

The sound of my piano being played, or rather the keys being banged too hard against the strings quickly got my attention. When I arrived in the living room I found my daughter raising her arm, her hand out ready to bang down on the keys again. Quickly and carefully I grasped around her wrist. "Gently," I said.

A moment later she turned around and put her hand against my cheek showing me what she wanted, or what I thought she wanted. I lifted her up and sat down holding her on my lap as I began to play her lullaby.

Her head shaking caused me to stop before the song had a chance to really begin. Again her hand reached up to touch my cheek showing me what I had seen just a moment before, as her small hands crashed down against the keys.

"You want to learn?"

She nodded and I smiled. Bella had been after me to get her to talk more but I knew that in time she would feel more comfortable using her words. The easiest song I could think of with the keys her fingers could reach was Chop Sticks and even that seemed a bit of a stretch.

Renesmee is the size of a two year old even though she is ten months in biological aging. I eyed the keys only for a moment before I took her small hands and gently made them into fists leaving out her index fingers.

After a moment I put her fingers on the right two keys, and press them down at the same time before releasing them. When she tried it on her own I smiled before moving her fingers to the next set of keys, but she pulled them away and lifted her head up looking at me as she touched my cheek showing me again how I played for her.

"You have to start with a simple song first," I said, as I reached out and showed her how to play Chop Sticks.

She gave it a try but quickly grew frustrated when she messed up. Most things came easy to my little girl, but this skill was something that took practice, and I had a feeling she wasn't going to be happy unless it was something she could learn quickly. "Should we try something different?" I asked, as I bent my head forward and kissed the top of hers, drawing in her sweet smell as I inhaled lightly.

Renesmee's answer came quickly as she made her hands into fist ready to try again. "Push them down six times," I tried.

She did this slowly and succeeded. The next set of keys she got right as well as I counted out how many times she needed to push them down.

It was when there wasn't much repetition that she got frustrated again, and when she slid out of my lap she crawled under the piano.

"Why is it so hard," I heard her ask, a voice so soft that no human ears would have heard even this close.

"Sometimes, when you learn something new it isn't always easy. I know you don't like that and I wish I could help you feel better, which is why I think maybe we should try this later." I wasn't giving up on her learning this, but I also knew Renesmee's limits and this seemed to be it for her and the Piano.

When she didn't move from her hiding place, I stood up and knelt down. "Why don't we go hunting?"

She shook her head and I hated the sad expression on her face. It was rare to see her so sad, but she was starting to learn that the world wasn't always such an easy place to live in.

Knowing that she would come out on her own, I sat down on the sofa and waited. It wasn't long before she was in my arms. Once there she put her hand on my face showing me a memory of Bella and Alice.

"They will be home soon I think." Alice had managed to get my wife to go shopping with her, something I knew Bella didn't like, but tolerated every now and again. If Bella had her way they would be back very soon, and my sister would likely be grumpy because they had not gotten in a full day of shopping.

Again Renesmee put her hand on my cheek, showing me Jacob.

"He is with Sam today, they have some things to discuss about their packs," I answered.

"Daddy, are we moving away?"

I shut my eyes realizing that she had heard me discussing that with Bella. I was trying to convince my wife that it was time to move, but it wasn't easy and that was something that we generally got into arguments about. "We might one day, but I don't want you to worry about that," I told her as I lifted her up and turned her around, putting her back on my lap facing me.

"Grandpa Charlie would be sad, and I don't want to go without my Jacob."

One moment she was calm, and the next she was crying softly against my chest. I gathered my arms securely around her, "Shh."

Emmett had once joked that we should sound proof her room so that she wouldn't hear anything that might traumatize her, though the sort of trauma he was referring to was the love making we did after our daughter was asleep. What I was thinking of now as she drifted to sleep against me, was doing that so she wouldn't hear things that would get her this upset.

Carefully I shifted her, cradling her in my arms as I stood up. A moment later I was in my old room which now belonged to Renesmee. Without waking her, I put her down in her bed and pulled a soft quilt over her, kissing her before I left. I was hopeful that Bella would be home soon.

The keys of my piano being played drew me back inside from talking to Seth. It had only been a half hour since Renesmee cried herself to sleep, and I wasn't surprised to see her at it again. This time she was being careful, and I watched as she tested each key listening to the variations of sounds that they made.

Is that Nessie, Jacob thought, as he approached.

I nodded, and smiled at my friend.

He wore a pair of dark sweat pants, and was barefooted as usual. "She is determined to learn," I said proud of her for not giving up. I was also learning as a father, that sometimes it was best to let Renesmee experiment on her own, so long as she was not hurting anything.

The music stopped the moment Jacob walked in the door, and in barely a second she was in his arms bouncing excitedly as she touched his face. I moved aside as he put her down and watched to two of them run from the house heading for the back.

Bella recently said that they were two peas in a pod, and it seemed that they were. We had both come to accept his part in her life. He was as a much a part of who she was as we were, and I no longer worried as much about her future with him there. I wasn't quite ready to think what that would entail, but I trusted Jacob Black to do the right things, and for now that seemed enough as I listened to them from a distance arguing over who had been the first to catch a deer.

My daughter was my gift and I was ready to see what new things life would bring for her and for us all.