Not looking at her I said, "I miss the stars in the night sky, especially out over the ocean where there is no competing light to take away from the effect of their brightness."
Keturah lay down beside me and I glanced over at her to see her gazing up at the clouds overhead with real fascination.
"What's it like up there?" She asked softly.
"I'll tell you." I then started to explain all the created cosmos above the limits of her sight. I explained about the sun and the moon. The planets in orbit and the stars further out. I talked about a lot of things as I sought to fill the curiosity she had as one who had never seen the common things that I had so often just taken for granted.
At some point during my lengthy discourse her fingers had inched over closer and closer to mine and eventually I took her hand and held it as we talked back and forth for hours. At some point I fell asleep still holding her hand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keturah's elbow was tired and a little painful from where the netting bit into it, but she continued to ignore both ailments as she leaned on it to gaze down at the sleeping man beside her. Her man.
Her whole personality warmed at that transforming thought and all manner of thoughts occurred to her of how different her lonely existence upon the waves was going to be because of what this man would bring to her life and already had in so many ways.
The best moments of her life had been when he had lain awake for hours as he described the wonders of the world above to her. She'd never had such a companionable moment with an individual before and she loved him for giving her the gift of his time and interest in just her and nobody else.
Her gaze fell onto the curiously indented ring of flesh on his left hand and her eyes got wet again. She'd cried quietly for more than an hour earlier, when she'd seen the absence of the ring on his finger.
She wouldn't have minded at all if he'd kept it for she knew what it symbolized, but somehow him removing it meant so much more. She'd learned from the one called Matt all about Eli's family.
It was no intention of hers to ever replace the significance of his dead wife, she had only wanted to share what was left. And that would've been enough to be content with. Never in her wildest dreams would she have ever expected a man like Eli to fully commit himself to someone like her, but that was just the kind of man that he was.