Water on the Moon

Early one morning, Lidia Raven, mother of teenage twins, awakens to the sound of a sputtering airplane engine in the distance. After she and her girls miraculously survive the crash that destroys their home, they're taken in by Lidia's friend, Polly, a neighbor who lives alone on a sprawling estate. But Lidia has other problems. Her husband has left her for another man, she's lost her job, and she fears more bad news is on the way when she discovers a connection between her and Tina Calderara, the pilot who crashed into her home. In the months following the crash, Lidia plunges into a mystery that upends every aspect of her life, forcing her to rethink everything she thinks she knows.

Jean P. Moore began her professional life as an English teacher, later becoming a telecommunications executive. She and her husband, Steve, and Sly, their black Lab, divide their time between Greenwich, Connecticut and the Berkshires in Massachusetts, where Jean teaches yoga in the summers.

Her work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary journals such as ;upstreet, Distillery, Skirt, Long Island Woman, and the Hartford Courant. In 2009, Jean was selected to attend the Advanced Fiction Workshop, led by Nahid Rachlin, at the 92 Street Y. ;A short story, “Friday Night at the Olympia Theater” can be read online in ;Slow Trains, Spring, '09. Additionally, a memoir piece, “Leaving Charles,” appears online ;in ;Persimmon Tree, summer, 2011. Several poems, “Dancing with My Mother,” (a finalist), “Evening,” and “Views of the Valley, page 76,” can be read in 21st Century Women's Voices, 2013.

Contents

Running on Empty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Ravens of Ravenna . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Fall Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Salvaging What Remains . . . . . . . . . .43

Thanksgiving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Rebuilding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

The Best and Worst of Times . . . . . .103

Ringing in the New . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

That Old Gang of Mine . . . . . . . . . . .125

The Iron Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .137

Friends and Lovers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

What Lidia Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Storms on the Horizon . . . . . . . . . . .185

Changes! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203

Wedding Bells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .219

Apples of the Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223

End Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231