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Show Moon -168 Dear Mother, I know this is Error and that in God's truth I'm whole and perfect. However, in this earthly realm it is said that I have a disease called multiple sclerosis, which has no cure. You, I think, have already been given this news, perhaps many years ago. I am sure that with the proper faith I could be healed (which is not necessarily the same thing as being cured). I am fine. I am staying busy and calm. They say staying calm is the most important thing. I would like to see you. We have an extra room now that Caleb has moved out, and you'd have plenty of privacy. James won't talk. Please come soon. I don't know how you will take this, but I need you. Love, your daughter, Anne. Ruth didn't come. She gave her reasons: too hard to travel this time of year, Esther was counting on her right now. Anne crumpled her mother's letter, threw it on the floor, stamped on it, cried out, "Why was I born?" But her calmness returned, as it always did, and she admitted that no matter what, she needed her mother, needed the rest of them, Alice and Michael and Esther, these people who were the hand she'd been dealt. So she decided if they wouldn't come to her, she'd go to them. Mother, I think you'd see this as a little joke. I've arranged it so you're about to begin your odyssey just as I'm about to set off from New York to visit the same people. We're in danger of converging. I know we're doing this many years apart, but when it comes to matters of love, time has a way of collapsing on itself. Can we manage this? Do I risk becoming merged with you? Do you mind that I will speak yet again as if I'm inside your mind, as if these experiences I imagine for you actually happened in a certain way? Will this delay your final journey home? Well, it's too late for you to object, I'm afraid. Too much has |