Slow Moon Rising by Eva Marie Everson

questions, Ross, means you have begun the process.”
    He looked directly at me. “Process? Of what?”
    â€œGetting your answers. You cannot answer questions you don’t have.” I smiled weakly. “I know. I’ve gone through these same questions . . . both when my father chose another family over ours and when Mom died.”
    Ross folded his arms over his abdomen.
    â€œBut that doesn’t get you to the guilt you say you felt yesterday. Are you feeling guilty for even asking these questions?”
    â€œNo,” he said, all too quickly.
    â€œWhat then?”
    His hand squeezed mine before traveling up my arm to clasp my elbow. He leaned over the table and spoke softly. Intimately. “For feeling something . . .”
    â€œAbout?”
    â€œAbout you.”

6
    Ross was leaving on Wednesday, two days away. Hardly enough time to start, experience, and finish a summer romance. He had called his daughter and practice partner, Jayme-Leigh, told her he was relaxing and enjoying his time and would she hold down the fort another week.
    We had nine days.
    We decided not to waste a single minute. I turned the shop over to Cheryl so as to spend my days with Ross. He planned every moment without a second of them held from me, although I sensed Lisa’s hand in the details. We took biking tours, bird-watching tours, and an aircraft scenic tour in a Cessna 172. We spent hours in the Maine Indian Heritage Museum and Gift Shop and at the Cottage Street Arts Center, where we saw several independent films during the afternoons and live theater at night. We went kayaking and lobster fishing, and took two different tours for seal and whale watching.
    Out of all our activities, the one we seemed to enjoy the most was the two-hour windjammer cruise. We took three: a morning tour, an afternoon tour, and—the most romantic—a sunset tour. It was on this tour that Dr. Ross Claybournekissed me for the first time. Warm and sweet, like the night. Like the man.
    On Sunday night—one week from our first afternoon together—I lay in my bed, sobbing. Earlier that day Jon had expressed such disapproval over my new relationship, I thought he would go after Ross with some made-up legal citation, although I couldn’t imagine for what. Ross had taken it all in stride, but I was crushed. I had fallen in love with this man, deeply and passionately in love with this man. I couldn’t bear the thought of his leaving, and I couldn’t abide my brother’s disapproval. He was, after all, my only family left. Truly.
    I cried also because we had but three days left with each other. A week earlier they’d felt like a lifetime away, but now they hovered like death’s blanket. I wondered if Ross felt the same; if our being together for that many days would only add to his angst rather than heal his grieving heart.
    He never once brought up Joan and, for the most part, I didn’t sense her ghost between us. How could I? There was no room for her displeasure; there was only space for love.
    The following morning we were to meet for breakfast before a seal-watching tour, which we’d already done once and enjoyed immensely. My eyes were swollen from my tearful night; before dressing I applied damp green tea bags over them and lay flat on the bed, ankles crossed, and listened to the Celtic strings of harpist Áine Minogue playing on my CD player. Just as I pulled the nearly dry bags from my face, my cell phone rang. I had placed it next to me on the bed. I grabbed it as though it would get away.
    The caller ID showed it was Ross.
    â€œGood morning,” I said, attempting to be cheerful.
    â€œGood morning, my love.”
    I melted. “Hello.”
    â€œI need to cancel our breakfast,” he said. “Can we meet at the harbor at the boat dock at nine-forty-five?”
    Disappointment washed over me. “Uh . . . sure.” Even an hour and forty-five