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Show Moon -171 Why not? Anne thought. It would be a nice thing to do, a kind of parting gift to her sister. Alice would be sure she'd done her bit and it would be over. And, who knows, it might be wise, just in case. Then, without warning, an unreasoning emotion seared up inside her, a flame welding her together, making her feel joined to herself as she had not been joined for many years. The emotion, she realized, was anger. It was red. It was clean. It was good. She would not push it away. If anything in herself needed forgiving, it was the snuffing out of this light, even when that light was anger, even when it told her not to please another person, even when it asked her move her knee away from her sister's grasp and thus reject the only offer of love Alice knew how to make. It was Anne's way of coming clean, going clean, not going gentle. Anne squeezed her sister's hand briefly to let her know she meant no offense, and said, "No, This isn't me." Alice sprang up and walked angrily away. Anne moved after her as quickly as she could manage, laid her hand on her sister's arm, said, "What I need is human love. You're my sister." But it was clear, looking into Alice's wide disapproving eyes, her sister wasn't up to that sort of love. All her life Anne had lived in the shadow of Alice's perfection, and she felt a perverse satisfaction in seeing that her sister was, underneath the lemon oil and the banner of Jesus, as empty of love, as fearful of the truth, as she herself had been. But this journey toward death was going to be a lonely business. |