Twilight Sounds

When I was living in my old apartment I would often hear
the woman upstairs start singing and playing acoustic guitar
around 7 o'clock most evenings. That's also around the time
I ate dinner most nights. At first it was a bit of a nuisance
since I would get home from work and just want some peace
and quiet. I sometimes thought about hitting the ceiling with
the broom to get her to shut up but I never did. I've never been
too into music. A lot of times I would put the radio on and just
flip around the stations to hear whatever randomness seemed
the most pleasing.

After about a month or so of her doing these evening performances
I began to listen to her. I would just sit there while my dinner
would begin to get cold. Her words were heartbreaking, her
voice strained over certain lines, I could practically see the
tears streaming down her face. I can't really pinpoint what
it is that made her so different than all those other voices on
the radio or TV, it was just a feeling that I couldn't shake. It's
like her voice had set up residence in my chest.

After she was done playing it was almost always quiet upstairs.
I began to wonder about her and her life. Were all those songs
about things she had lived through? Was she a professional
musician? Did she only play for herself? I stopped myself
many times over from going up and just saying hello. I
remember when she moved in, I saw her lugging her boxes
up the stairs from the rented van. I don't remember seeing a
guitar case among her possessions but she obviously had one.

I was in too big of a rush that day to stop and say hello and
introduce myself. She had shoulder length strawberry blonde
hair, she was slender but not frail. There was a certain kind
of resilience in her motions. She had the kinds of movements
that only someone who has lived through hardship can know.
She wasn't the kind of woman who you would say was a drop
dead beauty, but there was a natural grace to her that was
greater than the images on the tv and magazines.

I began to think about her more and more outside of those
evenings that we shared together apart in our apartments.
I had never seen or heard anyone else but her come in or
out of her apartment. She had no boyfriend that I could
tell, or girlfriend for that matter.

One afternoon at work I finally decided that when I got
home that night I would finally go up to her apartment and
introduce myself and tell her how much I had been enjoying
her music. I prepared my dinner in the same I always had
and waited for that familiar sound.

I waited and waited but it never came. Was she running late?
Did she stay late at work? Was she caught in traffic? Was she
visiting with family? Had she gone out of town? It floored me
that the one night I finally decided to meet her she would not
be there. Once I realized that she wasn't coming home to sing,
I turned on the radio but I quickly shut it off because it wasn't
the same, it wasn't her.

The next two days passed in the same fashion. Each night I
got my dinner ready and waited to for her to come back but
to no avail.

On the fourth day as I was walking to my door I saw her
at the bottom of her stairs with an older woman at her side.

Her arm was in a cast and her face looked bruised. She had
her castless arm over the older womans shoulder. They moved
up the stairs one step at a time. I could hear the pain in each
step by way of a groan escaping her lips.

I walked up to the base of the stairs and asked "Do you two
need any help?" They paused and looked down at me. The
pained look on the older woman's face said everything.

"Could you open the door for us?" I walked up a couple of
steps to join them.  The older woman had produced a key and
and put it in my hand. The young woman looked exhausted
and still in pain. "Thank you very much."

I opened up the door to the apartment and waited for them to
reach me at the top of the staircase. In her apartment I saw
her guitar sitting there on a stand next to a loveseat in front
of TV that I had never heard once.

Once they reached me I gave the keys to the older woman
"Thank you once more." The young woman looked up and
feigned a painful smile. "Thank you for getting the door."
"No problem. I just want to introduce myself. My name is
Jacob and I live in the apartment downstairs. Let me know
if either of you ever need anything."

"Thank you Jacob" the older woman said. "My name is
Sylvia and this is Nancy." as she motioned to the fragile
frame in her care. "Have a good night you two." I walked
down the stairs and into my apartment to prepare my dinner
like normal. I sat down in silence and wondered what could
have possibly have happened.

As I lay in bed that night, my conscious mind fading from
this realm, I could have sworn I heard an older voice singing
 quietly, sweetly into the night.