Even The Moon Can Affect A Relationship

When Gail pulled her car into her driveway and stepped out into the night, she heard the neighbor’s dogs howling at the full moon.

The mournful sounds were quite high and soft, and though she knew the neighbor’s dogs were sweet, the sounds they were making still sent shivers vibrating along her spine beneath her damp cotton top. Her car’s air conditioner hadn’t been working hard enough; the coolant probably needed refilling….

She tried to keep her mind off the night howls as she walked across her driveway and toward her front door. Light spilled out the living-room window beside the door; her boyfriend was home. She’d phoned him on the way from work, and she’d wished then that he was beside her in the car, just as she wished he was beside her right now. She wished they were together permanently, as in: she wished that they were engaged.  

They’d been going together for over a year and living together for over a month. Since their one-year anniversary, she’d been hoping that they would get engaged, but, her boyfriend had hesitated. He always hesitated. She preferred shy men, but there was a difference between being shy and being reticent, and her boyfriend was much closer to the latter. She had lived on her own for years, had no happy family life as a child, and some days, she despaired that she would soon be living all alone once again.

The night sounds deepened in the air, and her fingers shook on her keys so much, she dropped them on the stoop. Blood pounded into her face as she bent over; she didn’t like that idea, she didn’t like the knowledge that her blood was there pumping, pushing her life through her, her necessary blood, her mortal body, so fragile, so affected by just sound….
Snatching her keys from the concrete stoop, she shoved the correct key into the door lock and pushed open the door. 

“Tommy—I’m home!” she called as she rushed into her living room. It was wide and warmly lit, and it pushed her nervousness down a few notches.  

“Hey, Gail,” Tommy answered from in another room as she locked the door behind her. She dropped her keys and pocketbook onto the long coffee table in front of her plump brown couch; then she plopped onto the plump cushions to take off her shoes. 

“There’s plenty of salad leftover for you,” Tommy said now.  

“Great--thanks!” she replied on a contented sigh, rubbing her bare feet against the soft rug below the couch. “Today was sooo busy and frantic with the area manager there, and then I come home and—did you hear the sounds? The dogs? At least I think it was only dogs. There was the howling as usual, but--I don’t know. It really bothered me tonight. It made me think of more things than just the howling.”  

She got off the couch and moved across the room toward the back of the house, where the kitchen was. She could hear the water running into the kitchen sink, but she became distracted by the unopened electric bill lying on a small side table. She opened the bill and took it with her toward the kitchen door. 

“How do you mean?” Tommy asked her from inside the kitchen. “What things were you thinking?”  

“Oh, about life--and us…you know how I feel, about what we should do next.” 

“I know,” he said, and there was an unusual edge to his voice that she couldn’t pinpoint without seeing him in front of her. 

She finally moved into the kitchen doorway and watched his profile as he worked at cleaning up dishes in the steel sink. His thick dark hair curled around his neck and shoulder area, and his gaze was focused on his own soapy hands. She couldn’t read his expression, and he didn’t seem to want to turn her way— 

She startled a little—she’d just heard it again then—that howling song from the sky, coming in through the big open window over the sink. “It’s so scary—you know how I feel about the idea of werewolves!” 

“Yeah, I know how you feel,” Tommy said.  

He seemed so distant—why wouldn’t he look at her directly? “Tommy what’s wrong—do you feel it too? Something’s been going on—you barely said goodbye to me this morning. I think…I think we need to have a serious talk about the future, about our future.” She laid the electric bill on the kitchen’s white dining table, keeping her eyes down on it. 

She heard a little squeak as Tommy turned off the sink faucet, the trickling sound of the water completely stopping now. Unfortunately, the sounds of the howls intensified as they poured through the window; the throaty music sounded louder than ever, making Gail shiver again, even worse than before.  

She spun around to face Tommy, desperately hoping he would make her feel more secure, but when he turned around now and said, “You’re right: we need to talk,” his eyes finally shifted right to her—and then she finally saw that what had once been blue irises had since morphed into large yellow irises.

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Even The Moon Can Affect A Relationship © 2026 by F. P. Adriani

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This story is based on a moment I experienced one day when I came home. It was in a story collection I had on Amazon.

Just thought I'd post it here. Thanks for reading it.