"Jesus told them not to strike them down, of course."
"Why did the Samaritans refuse them anyway?"
My father waved a dismissive hand. "Jew-Samaritan tensions. That is beside the point. My point is…James and John were determined to defend themselves and Jesus. It shows us that maybe, when necessary, we should be like the Sons of Thunder."
I shook my head, confused. “But Jesus told them not to.”
“Yes,” my father agreed, “but he did not shame them for having that thunder inside of them, instead, he gave them that title. If he wanted to banish it, he would have, would he not?”
I hesitated, weighing his words before nodding.
We trained for an hour. Then again the next day, and the next. Sometimes before school, sometimes after.
Once satisfied I had the capacity and the skills to defend myself and Auden, he turned to the bottle once more, seemingly having nothing left to do, no goals to achieve.
Depression claimed him. And then the cancer did.
I was eleven when he got the diagnosis. Liver cancer. A malicious cell that spread through his body, swimming through the bloodstream to invade his blood vessels and lymph nodes. Their colonisation weakened him, but I was assured that once he received treatment, he would never pick up a drink again.
My father lied.
Bottles of whiskey littered the living room floor, the air heavy with a bitter stale scent that soaked into the walls. His chemotherapy was in the morning, and by the time I returned home from school, he was passed out in his armchair, dry vomit on his shirt.
Uncle Brady was released from prison a week before my father’s condition deteriorated. He refused hospital treatment, no longer attending his chemotherapy sessions or doctor’s appointments. He’d given up.
Although Brady was not the nurturing type, he supported his older brother by guiding him in and out of the bathroom,showering him, and organising his medications. It meant I had more time to prepare meals, clean the house, and raise Auden.
One afternoon, as the sun drowned in the horizon, Uncle Brady and I sat on the front porch, a comfortable silence drifting between us. He took a long drag of his cigar, releasing the smoke to disappear with the wind.
Brady looked a lot like my father. They shared the same dark brown curls, grey eyes, sharp nose and thin lips. The black ink decorating his whole left arm, as well the long, jagged scar on his right cheekbone, were the only notable differences between them.
There was a lot about Uncle Brady I did not know. My mother had never liked him, and since he was in and out of jail, he was never around for family holidays. But he was here now, and that was all that mattered.
“You doin’ alright, kiddo?” Brady’s question pulled me from my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I lied. “You?”
“Fuck no.”
We sat in silence for a long moment before I asked, “Do you think he will make it?”
“I dunno, kid. The cancer has spread,” he sighed, “and once that shit spreads…it’s harder to kill. Your father…might not be around for much longer.”
The words plunged into me like a knife. It was not surprising, and yet, hearing it said out loud made it all the more real. My father was dying. And there was nothing I could do. I could not stop my mother from leaving, and I could not stop my father from dying.
“Okay…” I breathed out, hands clenching and unclenching into fists on my lap. “...we just…we need to pray harder. We haven’t been to church for a while. Mum always said that if we turned to God he will–”
“Fuck God,” Brady cut me off. “Fuck religion. People like your Ma…they think they’re saints, God’s obedient soldiers doing his bidding, but they’re a bunch of god damn hypocrites.”
A twisted grin spread across his face, and in that moment, he looked nothing like my father. He looked like a corrupted version—like my own face shifting to a demon in the mirror. “If there is a God…I’ll always root for the Devil. At least he doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not.”
Maybe Uncle Brady was right. What had prayer ever done for me?
That is right, little monster. God has abandoned you.
CHAPTER TEN
A sea of black proceeded through the arched doors of the church, a chorus of condolences filtering through the air.
