A Sliver Of The Sun

Rhodri had promised himself he wouldn't wait for her. The husband might claim her after all, or some other duty, or just the lack of real desire to be there. He wasn't going to wait around like some mooney adolescent, stood up. The moment the sun peeked over the horizon, he'd be gone. It was due at six thirty-two; he'd checked the paper. Three more minutes. Of course, they might measure the time of rising where it was flat; it would take longer to climb over the top of a mountain ridge. Three more minutes and she would be late. After all, she was married.

It was horribly like being a teenager again; the nervousness, the certainty that he would offend her somehow, misread signals, act the fool. He told himself over and over that it couldn't matter. Whatever he might have thought her tone of voice meant, she was married, and in these days, with marriage so easy to get out of, what could that mean but that she wanted to stay with her husband? She wasn't the sort of woman to have a meaningless fling; he felt quite sure of that. So. She was only coming up to see the birds, she just wanted to see the falcons worked. That was all. A curiosity; a new experience for her. It was enough. Would have to be enough. After all, she was married.

He checked his watch. Six thirty-two. But the sun had not yet put its edge above the mountaintop. Rhodri went into the house and brought out the thermos of coffee, put it on the truck's seat. He checked the birds again, making sure the folding chair he'd added to his usual load wasn't going to slide around in transit and hurt one of them. It would be all right; he had his imagination on a rein again. Morgaine shifted uneasily on her perch and he regretted the cologne he'd put on after the sitz bath. Some kind of water heater was definitely going to have to be next on his list of home improvements.

Six thirty-five. He looked to the east, and there it was, just the tiniest sliver of gold, right at the top of the highest peak. He was definitely going to have to leave without her; his whole body seemed to fill with disappointment. Stupid, she was married.

Then came the sound of her jeep, whining up the last steep grade just out of sight, and his heart rose with a leap, like one of the birds taking flight.