Slow Moon Rising (25 page)

“Do you know where Gray is?”

“Gray?”

“His class has pretty much all gathered in the front room, but he's not here yet.”

I looked at my cell phone resting on my desk. “He hasn't called.” A tingle went over my body. Ominous, as if my heart knew something was amiss.

“Laura said he hasn't called the front desk either.”

“Is the weather still pretty bad out there?”

“It's a gully washer all right, but it's not like him to be late and not call.”

I reached for my phone. “I'll call.”

The call went to voice mail, and I left a message. “Gray? Hey, it's Ami. Um . . . you're late.” I tried to draw from the storehouse of humor I kept deep inside. “I'm going to have to dock your pay if you don't have a good excuse, you know.”
I looked at Genice. She smiled, though the smile didn't seem heartfelt. “Okay, um, call when you get this.”

I returned the phone to where it had been just moments before and stood. “I'll go talk to the class,” I said, smoothing the front of my jeans as though they were wrinkled.

Just as I reached for my phone, it rang. I looked from Genice to it and said, “Bet that's him. Probably couldn't answer in traffic.” I picked up the phone. Caller ID indicated that, sure enough, it was Gray. “Gray?” I answered.

“Ami . . .” The voice on the other end of the line was hardly recognizable. It was raspy. Torn into a million pieces.

I looked at Genice. Fear must have registered in my eyes.

“Gray?”

“Ami, I . . . I need you. I'm sorry I haven't called you yet, but . . . I need . . .”

“Gray, what's happened? Where are you?”

“I'm at home. I'm at . . . I need you.” His words broke off and into sobs. “I couldn't call before. I . . . just got back and . . .”

“Back? Back from where?”

“I need you.”

“I'll be right there,” I said.

I'd only gone to his apartment once, and that was six months ago when a group of us from the church had helped him move in. I hoped I could remember how to get there, or that the address was still stored in my car's GPS. About that time Laura skidded into the door, running smack into Genice.

“Sorry,” she said. “Ami,” she whispered. “I have to tell you something
now
.”

“I'm coming,” I said to Gray. “I love you.” I ended the call. “Laura, for heaven's sake, what is it?”

“I just got a call from my mom,” she said, breathless. “She said it was on the news.”

I shook my head lightly. “What was on the news?”

“Gray's sister . . . the one who was raped . . .”

“What about her?”

“She was killed last night.”

My backside made hard contact with the top of my desk. “What?”

“The man who raped her, they let him out of prison on an early release program. Mom said that the news said he broke into her house and . . . it's pretty gruesome, Ami. He raped and tortured her before he killed her.”

Bile rose in my throat. I swallowed it back. “Oh, Father . . .” I felt myself go dizzy.

Genice went to the side of my desk, where I always kept my purse. She grabbed it up and tossed it at me. “Go, Ami. But drive careful.” She handed me my umbrella. “We don't need anything happening to you too.”

I walked out of the office, through the hallways and the crowd of waiting women in the front room. I didn't bother to open the umbrella; I drew it close to my chest along with my purse and walked straight out into the pelting drops of water. When I arrived at my car, I fumbled for my keys, which had fallen into recesses of satin and leather. By the time I'd gotten inside, I was soaked and shivering. I flipped on the seat warmers, started the car, turned off my preset radio station, and activated my GPS. After pushing a few keys, I found Gray's previously entered address, pressed go, and waited.

“Drive fifteen feet and turn right,” the automated voice said.

I flipped the windshield wipers to the highest speed, pressed against the accelerator, and started out of the parking lot. But before I could reach the traffic light leading me onto the highway, sobs racked my body with such force, I had to pull into another parking place.

I opened my car door, leaned my head into the pouring rain, and vomited onto the asphalt below.

Anise
First Week of December 2012

The melodious voice of Dick Haymes singing “O Come All Ye Faithful” filled the living room of our Cedar Key home. While Ross busied himself getting the Christmas tree into the stand, I sat in the middle of the sofa and opened boxes of ornaments, each wrapped in white tissue paper. I placed the ornaments on the coffee table; the tissue I folded and placed back in the boxes. I had managed to unwrap three boxes when the coffeemaker beeped in the kitchen, letting me know the coffee had brewed and was ready to pour.

“I'll do it,” Ross said, as though reading my mind.

He groaned as he rose from the floor, balancing himself with a hand pressed against a knee. When he stumbled, I shifted on the sofa and pushed the box on my lap to the cushion.

“I'm okay, I'm okay,” he said.

I was already half up. “Are you sure?”

He smiled at me. “Sit back down, Anise. I'm just an old man trying to stand too quickly.”

“Ross.”

He flexed his shoulders. “Seriously, hon. I just stumbled. It's not a big deal to stagger a little when a man is seventy-two. You'll see one day.”

I pulled the box of ornaments back onto my lap. He was halfway to the kitchen when I said, “Fifty is hard enough, thank you.”

To which he laughed. “Oh, to be fifty again.”

When he returned with his fingers wrapped around the handles of two Christmas mugs of steaming coffee, he said, “Why don't you put that aside for a minute and let's go sit outside on the balcony. It's a shame to waste a day like today putting up a tree.”

I took the offered coffee, looked down, and said, “I really want to have this done before Kim and Steven and the kids get here for the official lighting of the Claybourne Christmas tree.”

“Yes, yes.” He held out his hand. “I know. We'll get it done, I promise.”

There was nothing I liked better than sitting on that balcony with my husband, looking out over the water, wondering if a pod of dolphins might show themselves playing in the sunlight. I also loved waiting for the sunset. Watching the colors of the marsh and water change. And if a slow moon rose over those same marshes—especially in the light of day—it just made my life better than it already was.

I set the box aside, took my husband's hand, and allowed him to guide me to the balcony, where a patio set—one I'd
purchased recently from Home Depot—awaited. Amazon teak. Two chairs, one end table. Ross moved easily to his preferred seat and I sat in mine.

“You were right,” I said. “The weather is too gorgeous to miss.”

“Nice part of living in Florida in the wintertime.”

I took a sip of my coffee. “But I miss Maine's snow blanket on Christmas Day,” I said. “And having
cold
weather to make the season feel right.” I sighed. “But I'm happy there is, at least, a chill in the air.” Then I smiled at a new thought, which I chose to keep to myself. People in Cedar Key—when the weather hit sixty-nine—dragged out their winter coats. Where I'd grown up, that was considered a heat wave for this time of year.

Ross glanced across his shoulder to look at me. “Why don't we plan to go back up there next year? Spend the holidays with Jon and his family?”

I smiled. “I'd like that. It's been a few years now.”

His hand glided through the air toward mine. Mine did likewise. Our fingers entwined. “I should have thought of that this year.”

“You mean now that we're a couple of semi-retired old folks.”

“One of us, at least.”

In the early fall, Ross—fatigued beyond what he was normally able to handle—decided, finally, to take partial retirement. He'd argued that, as a doctor, he should be able to work until he walked out of his office door and into his grave. I agreed with the theory, but—as he'd said—his “get-up-and-go had got up and went.”

We—Ross, Jayme-Leigh, and I—decided Ross would work two days a week, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This would give us more time in Cedar Key but raised the question of what to do about my business.

On a whim, I offered it to Heather, who—miracle of miracles—decided to take it. I always knew she had great talent and more organizational skills than most people gave her credit for, and she's proven me right.

Ross kissed my hand. “What time will Kim be here?”

“About seven-thirty. I told her we'd have dinner, then dessert in the living room with the lighting of the tree.”

“She's doing real well, don't you think?”

“I do.”

Adjustments in the Granger household had not come easily, but anytime families start over or blend, there is a season of fine-tuning. Truth be told, the adjustments with the boys had been so slight, no one really noticed. Cody had been more upset than Chase—leaving his friends and his father to move three hours away—but had eventually come to love working with his stepfather in his tour boat business. Boys and boats were a good combination.

It was the business that had brought Steven back to Cedar Key. He had lived as a single father in Atlanta for most of his adult life. When his father had a heart attack, he returned. His daughter, Eliza, had been in college at the time; a young woman abandoned by her mother when she'd been no more than six. As soon as Steven introduced his daughter to his fiancée, she and Kimberly became fast friends. Something inside each drew them together. Their relationship was a beautiful thing to watch and one I could reflect easily on.
Both Kim and Ami had accepted me without question into their family. Jayme-Leigh's acceptance had come slowly but without a fight. Heather's, of course, had been another story entirely.

Right around the time Ross decided to go into semiretirement, Kimberly and Steven presented us with the most amazing gift, a granddaughter. They named her Patricia Joan. Patricia, for the woman who lived next door to us in Cedar Key until this past summer when God called her home. Joan, of course, for Kimberly's mother.

Losing Patsy was difficult for all of us. For one, no one expected her death to come when it had. She'd not been ill and, at seventy-eight, had been planning to celebrate her birthday the following week with family and friends. She had been quite busy with and excited about the preparations.

It was Kim who found her body. Kim, who'd developed such a kinship with her, called Patsy at least twice each day. She always said “to check on her,” but I think it was more that Patsy gave Kim such wisdom. Patsy was the epitome of what all women hope to “grow up” to be. Fine. Gentle. Astute. When Patsy hadn't answered her phone all day, Kim decided to drive over. She used the spare key Patsy had given her and found her sitting on the balcony, head resting on the back of the chair, hand around a glass of weakened tea. Her face bore a faint smile, as though she'd looked up to see a loved one, and then, in the next breath, slipped into the arms of Jesus.

Three months later, the baby arrived. But, that blessed event came on the heels of news even worse than losing Patsy. Ami had called in early September, shortly after Labor Day. Gray's sister had been the victim of a vicious attack, killed in
a murder-suicide by a man who'd served time for raping her years before. For a while, my concern lay solely with Gray, then it shifted to Ami as well.

Ross and I had gone up for the funeral and found Ami to be unusually jumpy. Nervous. I asked her about it several times, but she blew it off, saying, “Wouldn't you be?”

Later, lying next to Ross in our hotel room bed, I said, “It's more than just her future sister-in-law's murder. I know it.”

Ross shook his head. “Nah, Anise. From what I read on the internet, this was pretty gruesome.”

“I understand,” I said. “But it's not like she walked in on the crime scene. I'm telling you, something is not quite right here.”

Two weeks after the funeral, Ami called to inform us she and Gray had married in a simple ceremony in their pastor's study. “We couldn't imagine having a wedding now,” she said. “And we can't imagine waiting a year, so Gray and I decided this was the best way.”

I heard her sadness. Her disappointment. But there was something more. Something I knew she wouldn't share until she was ready. If ever.

I took another sip of coffee, leaned my head back, closed my eyes and swallowed, and tried to imagine what death had felt like for Patsy. Looking out on these same waters, taking a sip of iced tea, and then . . .
home
.

The December air—warm and breezy—blew over my face, lifting my hair and tickling my skin. I opened my eyes again to watch a pelican soaring across the marshes, here and there
striped with brown. I watched him dip lower and lower, gliding across the water with grace. He dropped suddenly to just below the surface, came up with a large fish dangling from both sides of his beak.

“Got him one,” Ross said. “Lunch is served.”

I squeezed my husband's hand, looking his way. “Oh my, Ross!” I stood quickly.

Ross's face registered alarm; he must have felt what I saw at that very instant. A red trickle of blood seeping from his nose. He touched it lightly with his fingers, drew back his hand, and studied the tips.

“I'll get you a tissue,” I said, already stepping into the house.

I put my coffee cup on an occasional table in the living room, dashed into the powder room, and pulled out three tissues. I returned to find Ross tilting his head forward and pinching the nostrils. “Here, honey. Here,” I said, waving the tissues in front of him.

Ross applied them immediately under his nose and held them there. He removed them two or three times before saying, “It stopped.”

I squatted before him, resting my hands on his knees. “What happened?”

“Just a nosebleed, Anise. They happen from time to time.”

A nosebleed and a stumble . . . “Do they happen to
you
from time to time?” I took the bloodied tissues and stood again. “I'll go get you a wet washcloth.”

When I returned I found Ross staring at the marshes. I handed him the cloth and sat next to him, where I'd been just moments earlier.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well what?”

“Does it happen to you a lot?”

He shook his head. “No. I think I may have a sinus infection.”

I realized I'd left my coffee in the living room but didn't feel inclined to get it. “Wouldn't you know if it were a sinus infection?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I've been a little tired. Felt a little headachy. So . . .”

I sat back in my chair and crossed my legs. “I want you to get a checkup. Talk to Jayme-Leigh next week when we're in Orlando.”

“I'm due for my annual in a few months.”

“Ross. I don't want you to wait a few months. Please.”

He patted my hand as though I were a child. “All right, sweet pea. All right.”

Ross and I decided to have lunch at Kona Joe's the following afternoon, choosing to sit on the back deck overlooking the bayou. I stared at a dilapidated pier. Years ago, it had been a place for lulling the days away, fishing pole cast over the blue-gray water, the line disappearing into its depths, waiting for a nibble. Men and women wearing straw hats. Children with hair bleached and cheeks kissed by the sun. Now, no one would dare take a step out onto the sun-stripped wood. After twenty yards or so, it dipped into the water, then rose again, like a roller coaster rail. At the end, where only supporting posts struggled to stand, seagulls perched, looking
out toward the small shrub-filled islands dotting the waterway. I inhaled; the world smelled green.