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Show Moon -189 Gloria brought out the photo album after lunch. She had the best of the old pictures-the parents, the children, the weddings. She told a story about each one of them. She pointed to the wedding picture of Alice and Paul, him resplendent in Naval uniform. "That man is just like your husband," she said to Anne. "He doesn't like women. He's cold." "How do you know this?" Anne was astonished that Gloria would be so perceptive, not only about Paul but about James. She'd thought everyone in the family saw James as an ideal man. "Oh, little things. The strict way he treats his daughters. The way he won't let Alice catch his eye when she needs to get his attention." Anne waited for her to say more. Her understanding of the little things was an unexpected comfort. Usually, when you tried to explain the significance of eyes that won't connect, or a shoulder held against you a certain way, people scolded you for imagining things. "Yes," Anne said, "It's just like that with James. He closes his eyes when I try to talk to him. And with Joy-" "Most men leave wives who have M.S.," Gloria cut in. "You're lucky." Why did everyone say that? She felt brought up short, as if she'd been slapped. Were men so entitled to be so selfish that leaving their sick wives was the accepted thing? She reached down and flipped the album page back to the wedding picture of her parents, an indistinct sepia portrait so mannered they might have been any bridal couple from the last century. Across the page was a photo of her father sitting in his easy chair reading a book. Who had thought to take that picture? It was so rare that people wanted to capture how a person |