Free White Man's Problems by Kevin Morris Page B

then our mom died. No matter how many novenas she said or we said, she died. And my brother went downhill from then on. He was part of a grim fucking mathematical fucking universe.”
    â€œOk, calm down,” she said.
    â€œHe came back, and we were scared of him.” He started to cry. “He smoked pot and took reds and whites and went to bars and came home and slept in his army jacket. He ended up in a trailer park in Florida, Maria. That’s what happened. He would call me collect for money for the doctor for his baby. He got in a fight in a bar in Jersey and broke a guy’s jaw so bad they sued him. And then he gets cancer like my mother, and where is he now? He is dead. Just like we will all be. Dead. He didn’t protect us from anything. He is not a good story. He’s a sad fucking story. I don’t care about Vietnam; it’s not about that. It was good, it was bad, who knows…that’s for other people to decide. I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck. I just know he came back and Mom was dead and he was all fucked up. He had two kids who he couldn’t pay child support for and aren’t even here today to say good-bye.” He was yelling at her. “‘ He’s a priest. ’ Don’t tell me that.”
    â€œOk,” she said, “ok.”
    â€œLook at this bullshit,” he said. He pulled the piece of notebook paper with nine names from his wallet. “He was saying novenas just like my mother. Pathetic.”
    Maria looked at it. “Aw,” she said. “It’s all his girls.”
    9.
    M ary Meehan poked her head out the door and found them. “You guys come talk to me,” she said. “Maria, I haven’t seen you in forever. Get a drink and come sit down.”
    They found a place on the sofa and set their drinks on the coffee table atop coasters with the Donegan coat of arms, something Annemarie had brought back from her honeymoon to Ireland.
    John picked up one of the mass cards for Mike that were sitting on the coffee table. He felt drained. “Mike would have liked the laser beams. Did he design this with you?” He looked at Maria. “Mike and Mary hung out a lot the last few years, especially after he got sick.”
    â€œIt’s true,” said Mary. “He even started coming to Mass with me a couple years ago. He didn’t want anybody to know, really.”
    â€œI guess that’s pretty common,” said Maria. “I mean, when you get sick.”
    â€œWhat, when you know you’re going to die soon?” John said. Immediately he felt bad. He was getting too drunk. He tried to lighten up. “Maybe. But when I was little, they could never get him to go to church. He said he couldn’t take it.”
    â€œHow’s your mother, Mrs. Meehan?” said Maria.
    â€œShe’s fine, hon,” said Mary, but she wouldn’t be blown off track. She pointed at John. “You know, Jackie, I want you to know something. Michael changed in the end. I don’t know how much any of you kids saw it or how much he’d let you see.”
    â€œWell, I tried to talk to him a couple times a week,” said John. “But he went spacey on me. I assumed it was the meds, you know, and the chemo. That’s what I told myself, at least.”
    Mary sensed John’s guilt and looked into his eyes. “Oh, honey, your brother loved you so much. He was so proud of you.” She touched his knee.
    â€œWhat did you guys talk about toward the end?” John said. “How was he, really?”
    â€œWell, don’t take this the wrong way, but we talked about going slow.” Then she looked at Maria. “The thing is, Rosemary, your mother, Jackie, God rest her soul—you know she was my friend—anyway, she was always so active. ‘Say a Hail Mary’ or ‘light a candle for this one and for that one’ or ‘for the earthquake in Timbuktu’ or