Free The Fortunate Brother by Donna Morrissey

church Sunday mornings.
    “What’s up?” he asked. A dog barked from up the road and he shivered. “Arse. Near broke my jaw.” He wriggled his lower jaw.
    “Who, the dog?”
    “Close enough. Gillard. He sucker-punched me.”
    Kate bent her head over the neck of her guitar.
    “Down by the bar. Just out of nowhere. Punched me.”
    “He’s been prowling about of late. Something getting him stirred again.”
    Kyle wriggled his jaw some more. “Don’t think it could wriggle if it was broke?”
    “No.”
    “Yeah. Good, then. What’s up, Kate?”
    “The moon’s up, Kyle. Somewhere.” She gave him a wan smile. She popped him a can of beer and he sucked back a mouthful, sloshing it around and spitting it back out, staring after it for blood—couldn’t rightly see. He reached for a stick and gave the fire a good stoking. Flankers popped like orange stars. He laid the stick down and sat back, feeling nauseated again. He watched Kate’s fingers plinking at her strings in a non-rhythmic manner.
    “Hey, got a new song?”
    “Not a night for singing.”
    “Got a new song, though? You always got a new song.”
    “Yeah, I got a new song.”
    “Let’s hear it.”
    “Don’t got the words yet.”
    “What’s it called?”
    “Papa’s Quilt.”
    “Kinda quilt?”
    “Made from my grandpoppy’s PJs.”
    “His PJs? Is he dead?”
    “He is. My mama made me the quilt.”
    “Sorry, Kate.”
    “He’s not. Be over a hundred if he was still alive.”
    “Right, then. I like old men. Old men piddling about. Was it all right then, when he died—or passed? My sister Sylvie. Shedon’t like saying dead. She says passed. Like they’ve passed on by and are still passing.”
    “It was a nice passing. I’m sorry, Kyle. We don’t all get the gentle goodbye.”
    He lowered his head, then got the spins and sat up rapidly. He heard a series of low coughs coming from over by the river, somewhere.
    “Someone back there?”
    Kate strummed her guitar.
    “I think I heard someone. Over there. You hear anything, Kate?”
    “A boat, I think. Someone in a boat.”
    “In this fog? Fools.”
    “Lots of fools around, Kyle.” She kept strumming, her face turned from him.
    “Seriously. They can drown in this.”
    “Death bothers you, don’t it?”
    “Thought it bothered everybody.”
    “Been walking to greet us since the minute we were born.”
    “Cheery thought.”
    “Nothing’s perfect, Kyle. What would we sing about?”
    “Pissin’ in the rain?”
    “Pissing’s good.”
    “Let’s hear a song, then.”
    She shook her head. “Not tonight. Go on home now. Might want to check on your father—drinking and driving. Saw the cops out earlier.”
    “Father? You seen Father tonight?”
    She stopped strumming and gripped the neck of her guitar as though it were an irksome pet, laying it aside.
    “Kate, you seen Father tonight?”
    “Yes. Earlier.”
    “He was here? He was here, Kate?
Sonofabitch!
” He stumbled to his feet.
Sonofabitch, sonofabitch, he left her alone. When she was so needing someone with her.
Holding on to his ribs, he staggered across the gravel flat and turned down the black stretch of Wharf Road, cursing. Water suckled over the beach rocks to his left and suckled down the black cliff wall to his right. It suckled from his eyes and through his nose and his mouth and he felt like he was being corroded by water and he wiped at his eyes and his face, trying to make it all stop before he dribbled into bits by the roadside.
    He got to the wharf and softened his step. No need to wake her. He crept to the door and stumbled. Christ! Felt like he was getting drunker. He reached for the doorknob, but then noted a sliver of light coming through the drawn curtains and peered in. Bonnie Gillard. Sitting at the table with his mother. Their heads were bent towards each other like two crooks in a crowd exchanging secrets. He couldn’t see his mother’s face, but he could see Bonnie’s. She was bawling. He pressed