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Show Moon - 96 as if it's coming back to life. This plank of pine: the grain runs like a slow river." Mother, I think he's too good for me. If I'd gone to church with you when you asked, would that have helped you, made me a better person? Silence hung between us like an old curtain. ECLIPSE Off we were again, this time to Manila. On that second voyage, Mother, we were at sea for twenty-one days and weren't connected to what people call the real world, yet I remember those days at sea as one of the most real times of my life. I have tried to paint it, but who can make something so beautiful seem real? I have tried to tell it to Josh, but the words sound as thin as a hummed melody. We saw schools of leaping dolphins, a whale blowing, flashes of phosphorescence in the wash at night. And, incredibly, there was a full eclipse of the moon in a clear star-washed sky. An albatross watched over the stern like an angel. Caleb and Lee, even in their nervous preadolescence, roamed the decks stricken silent by the ocean. They swam in the pool, splashing each other because boys must, but then they'd float on their backs and gaze at the seabirds wheeling in the sky. Surely you were released by these wonders to return to the joyous flower-strewn part of yourself. I insist that this happened, and I have a clue: one day you were leaning on the arm of a deck steward, moving awkwardly, as if something connecting your ankles had lost its certainty, but your hair clung to |