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Show Moon -101 not, could not, miss a single night. She would risk anything. This, her father would not take from her. The next morning James leaned over his plate of eggs and said, "It's your life. Ruin it if you want to." It was bad enough that he would say this. But what made it frightening was that he was saying this with a smile, and worse, that the smile made him look like those leering Germany G.I.'s. Joy felt as if she'd slipped over the railing and would slide into the darkness of the ocean until finally not even the light of the moon could reach her. That night in the ballroom her father pressed his whole body against her as they danced, a thing he'd never done before. When he whirled by her mother's table where she smiled bravely up at them, Joy closed her eyes and felt she'd won a contest she hadn't meant to enter. After the band quit, Joy went to check on Caleb and Lee, as she sometimes did before her rendezvous with Alec, as if this gesture of sisterly concern made the whole thing all right. And she liked those moments of gazing on her sleeping brothers in the pale glow of the cabin nightlight, when she could stare at the curve of brow and let her eyes go soft without them noticing and getting self-conscious. But on this night, Caleb's bed was empty, the covers tossed back as if he'd gotten up in a hurry. He wasn't in the bathroom either. Joy shook Lee awake. The heel of his hand rubbing his eye, he said, "I didn't hear him go." She ran to Anne and James' cabin, and all of them hurried up the stairs to the deck, as if of one accord they feared the worst. James peered over the railing, pulled back, saying, "No, that's silly. He's gone around to get some air." Joy took off running. She'd search the main deck, then the upper, then go down |