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Show Moon - 58 "No. Why?" "Because you're my only daughter." She was silent then, pondering his logic. If Caleb had been another daughter, would he then no longer love her? Besides, she wasn't really his daughter at all. Joy was Caleb's real mother. She was the one who knew when he was ready to crawl and lured him forward, his little bottom up in the air like a lumpy pillow, jiggling his fuzzy rabbit the way you'd coax a kitten. She was the one who said, "I think he throws upmostly when he's lying on his back." She was the one who figured out how to pad the sides of his crib so he wouldn't accidentally bang himself. She was the first to get him to smile, and then to , laugh, and when he cried she knew when to leave him alone a while and when he was really needing something. Sometimes she lay down and placed him on her stomach; eye to eye they regarded one another. He was a being so perfect, so tender in his smiles, she could hardly bear it. He was not an idea of baby for her, for she had no idea of what baby ought to mean; he was himself and he was her discovery, a tiny person living in a country she could never quite go to no matter how much she believed. James, who could perhaps not tolerate so much love not directed at himself, announced that it was time for them to "date." The idea was that he'd take Joy anyplace she wanted every Saturday afternoon. First it was the zoo, then an art museum, where she would have stayed the entire day if he'd let her. At each painting she liked, she'd move in close, studying the paint strokes, the plays of color, then stand back and let the whole of it come together. She liked the impressionists especially, for they saw the world the way she did when she |