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Show Moon - 112 father. You said he was a good man. Why didn't you protect me? Did you blame me just as he did? A person could die trying to see to the bottom of this murky lake. The Art Students' League awarded Joy a scholarship. James said, "Absolutely not," but Joy heard her mother night after night persuading him. Never had she spoken with such force. She'd been sick again, dizzy and stumbling. Sometimes her speech was slurred. But when she persuaded James to send Joy away, she was at her finest. She was fighting for her marriage, but she was also fighting for her daughter, as fiercely as the bravest and best of mothers. When Joy told Caleb and Lee she was leaving, they stood with their hands helplessly dangling, the cowlicks up on their heads like tufts of grass, and she ached with love for them. The sorrow in their eyes astonished her, for she'd paid so little attention to them recently. They must have been waiting for her to notice them, and now it was too late. James made her promise she'd return home when she finished school, but this promise she made as a necessary lie to make good her escape. * She's flown, my little bird, the first babe in arms, love of my first love, my best love. Anne rocks silently alone in the living room, her afghan tight around her shoulders. Lee comes into the room, sees her, smiles, rushes up to her and they hug, cry a little. Big sister is gone and the typhoons have begun, locking them indoors against the slamming rains that come like a punishment of flailing fists on the roof. In the yard the flowers are flattened like bruises. James tells her the |