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Show Moon -141 make you some tea." And while the kettle was on, I threw my clothes into my suitcase. I set the tea beside you, pressed your dear trembling hands into my own and kissed you, said "I'm sorry. I have to leave now." You and James and the boys left to live in Washington again. What was it like for you, so many homes? Without the cottage I think we might have lost our moorings altogether. Now it was naked on his face-a decision not to be happy, as if by that he could claim something in himself that was noble and right. James sat every evening in his easy chair, his fingers curled around a drink, not reading, not talking, not seeing anything except his unhappiness. Anne ventured to draw him out. She uncurled herself before him like a roll of paper: Mark on me. It's all right. I'll listen. He stared at her with his cold blue eyes and grimaced with distaste at the intrusion. "Nothing's the matter," he said. He sighed. Do you have a need to know? That was the phrase, she thought she had it right, the government-issue response to a question that might pry out a secret. So many years of secrets! One of the secrets had to do with why her body was out of her control. She dropped things all the time, her fingers going suddenly numb. She sometimes walked as if she were drunk-so unfair, she who never drank! And most terrible of all, she sometimes woke up to discover she'd wet the bed. It was no use any longer hiding in the tattered refuge, of the Christian Scientist church. Something was wrong with her, and her not wanting to know |