Fit Month for Dying Read Free Page B

believes that because he has had no religion to ground him, he became a lackadaisy, a piece of flotsam cast adrift without direction, a man without stability, a crow on a pole ready to fly off at the sight of any shining object.
    One thing that has always amazed Philomena about her sons is that the two of them are so startling unalike. Other than that they both eschewed the religion she loves so dearly, they have little in common. For all they resemble each other, either in temperament or in physical makeup, or, for that matter, for all they resemble either herself or Hubert, they might just as well be strangers. In fact, there were times when she could easily have persuaded herself there had been some switch at birth if that had not been impossible. They were both born in her home down the bay in her big four-poster bed that Hubert had built out of white spruce — spruce which had warped and twisted as it dried so that the mattress never fit properly. Her mother and mother-in-law and a midwife were the only people in attendance at the births. Even Hubert had made himself scarce.
    Danny is slight of build, and he is careless about his appearance. He always looks a bit scuffed in a haphazard, unreined-in way. He saunters along as if he has all day to get wherever it is he is going, thumbs hooked over his back pockets, dragging them down. His unruly hair tosses this way and that way even if there isn’t any wind. Philomena hates his unkempt hair, and whenever he comes home, he is barely in the house before she is asking him whether the barbers in British Columbia are on strike.
    Greg is a solid man, a muscular man, and he makes sure he keeps his muscles toned by doing regular exercises and by walking several miles each day on a trail close to his house, the Rennies River Trail. Although Greg buys his clothes off the rack, he always looks tailor-made. In temperament Greg and his lawyer profession go hand in glove. He is sober minded, moderate in all things and fond of saying “the devil is in the details.”
    Philomena loves Greg for his wholeness. She loves Danny for his brokenness. She can see this brokenness is his eyes, which she says are as blue as the Virgin Mary’s gown and as sorrow-filled as the Virgin’s own eyes when she crouched at the foot of the Cross. Mother-of-Dolours eyes, Philomena calls them. Having lost a child herself, she can understand the Virgin Mary’s eyes being sorrow-filled. What she can’t understand is why Danny’s eyes should be sorrow-filled. She has noticed that even when he laughs that mischievous laugh of his, his eyes never laugh along with him.
    Danny is the cinder in her eye, the cross on her shoulders, the hitch in her heart. Countless times over the years she has wondered out loud why this child of hers, who was born on a Tuesday, born with the fair face of a Monday’s child, the woe-filled eyes of a Wednesday’s child and the blithe and bonnie spirit of a Sabbath Day child had not been given one whit of the peace and holy grace of a Tuesday’s child. And it wasn’t as if he had been born on just any Tuesday. He had been born on Shrove Tuesday. This, she feels, should have entitled him to an extra helping of grace instead of a lesser amount. But then there has always been so much about Danny she has never been able to fathom that she has given up looking for answers and has chosen instead to take comfort from aphorisms: No cross no crown. No thorn no rose. If you don’t have him to make you cry, you won’t have him to make you laugh.
    And Danny, she is convinced, can make a cat laugh. This was the main reason she wanted him home from British Columbia. She knew he would be able to bring a smile to Hubert’s pain-streaked face.
    And true to her belief, Danny’s presence did have a good effect upon Hubert. In fact, he improved so much during those first few days after Danny’s arrival that everyone began to hope the doctors