I sat on the porch, waiting. For nearly 60 years, I sat on this porch everyday, waiting to hear the quiet rumble that turned into the rolling hills, the jagged peaks, the flat expanses of the music. I remember the day I first herd her play. I had been working in the garden when a one, sweet note filled the air. That note rang in the humid air for centuries it seemed, when suddenly a babble of notes tumbled over the fence to my tanned ears. As I listened, I began to recognize the melody. I had to sit down and wipe the tears from my cheeks. I had been thoroughly moved.

Bella Swan has lived next to me for three years and I have yet to meet her. I know she is married, to whom, I'm not sure. She didn't change her name. Bella plays the cello. Everyday. It would seem as though she has every cello piece every composed committed to memory. Each day I get a private concert. She plays according to her life, her mood. Today it is rainy as is common in Forks. I am sitting on my porch, waiting for the session to begin. Just as I'm about to refill my tea cup, a series of joyous chords rip out of the silent world. I close my eyes. Today I hear the joy of new life, the fear of failure, the gentle giggle of an infant. I hear the innocent, big blue eyes staring at the world, I hear the delicious happiness, the pure joy, the strangling fear. I hear the overwhelming joy of carrying a child.

Bella has not been home to play for me for a week. The pieces on the radio are not enough. Even without her, everyday, without fail, I wait on the porch.

Bella's children have grown. Once a week, usually Saturdays, I have the pleasure of listening to Bella on cello and her four sons on the other instruments. I have learned their names over the years. James and William both play violin, Rowan plays the viola, and her youngest, Adam, plays the stringed bass. Today they are playing a piece by Jean Sibelius, Andante Festivo. I did not understand why people, especially such a happy family would play music like this. It was sad, nearly haunting. When the quintet had packed up, I researched the piece.

I was enthralled with the idea that one could create such beautiful music without reason or with entirely too much. I longed to play the piano again, but I could not bare it. Alice had loved when I played for her. The young pixie was just that, young.

I began to pay more attention to her music. Occasionally I would find myself humming that Sibelius piece to the broom as I danced around on my kitchen floors, pretending I had just been wed.

When Adam graduated from college, Bella's boys were to all to be married. I had never heard such joyful music explode from the quintet. Tchaikovsky's Serenade For Strings was also apparently for boys in their mid twenties, as I saw James and William dancing around on the lawn while they played. It was certainly a sight to see.

I used to think there was a time or, rather an age, when all joy seized, when the happiness was sucked out of the world and you were left an emotionless husk. I am realizing now that, yes, that can very well happen, but the joy, life, happiness, pain, and emotion lives on. They all live on in music.

I remember very clearly the day Bella Swan seized to exist. All the joy and life had not left her. Just as I knew it would. I cried for her, and I died a bit too, knowing I wouldn't hear her joyful cello ringing across my universe.

I felt ashamed of myself. I was not able to compose a piece of music that captured her life or how her's affected mine. I lifted the cover of the piano, I felt the familiar weight of the keys. I felt the familiar weight of my emotions. I thought of Alice and I thought of Bella. Before I knew it, the only piece I had ever truly connected with spilled from my soul. Clair De Lune. I felt new tears on my cheeks as I played. But they were not sad, no they were excepting, almost joyful.