HENRY MADISON PUT his hand in his trouser pocket, searching for the pen. Trying the top drawer and the cracked blue jug on the middle shelf of the dresser, eventually he found the good silver fountain pen he wanted. He got out the heavy quality writing paper and sat himself down at the kitchen table. Thankfully William was otherwise occupied watching Star Wars, his favourite movie.
It felt awkward composing a letter to a total stranger, something he really was not given to, but at this stage he had to resort to desperate measures. Every day he was becoming more and more incapacitated and immobile; the pain when he walked was excruciating and even standing for too long was making him grimace. The local clinic had made an appointment for him with a specialist who’d done all the tests and recommended a hip replacement, saying there had been a huge amount of degeneration of the joint. A few weeks in hospital, time afterwards convalescing and no heavy lifting or work for a few months, the surgeon had explained to him. Already Henry knew it would be impossible for him to go ahead with such a procedure. First off, who would mind William while he was in hospital and convalescing? His forty-five-year-old brother did not take well to strangers or to change. Then there was the whole question of not being able to lift or work for a long time afterwards. Who would there be to wash and dress him and take him for walks if he couldn’t do it? The quandary was that if he didn’t have the operation, in another year or two he might no longer be able to manage looking after his disabled brother anyways.
The responsibility lay heavy with him and Henry had consulted a few people about it. Regina Brown his social worker had assured him that she could pull a few strings and fix up a respite care bed for William somewhere close by and keep a good watch that he was doing OK. But Henry knew how upset William got whenever he attempted to leave him, crying and hollering like a toddler, and seeming totally bereft. Assurances and promises that he would come back were of no value as his brother had no concept of time or the future. It sure was a headache and he could see no way of resolving the dilemma. Celeste McGraw his neighbour, who sometimes watched William for him, had even offered to move into the apartment and mind him. It was a kind offer but one he would not be taking her up on, as even after a morning or evening minding him Celeste was exhausted. So how on earth would she last out for weeks!
Henry had no sister or other family he could turn to, and was not prepared to just go abandon his troublesome brother. There had to be another way.
He had been depressed about it, so depressed he had missed his meeting of the local historical society and the monthly poetry group. He was not in the mood for rhymes and words and research papers, with William totally unaware of the concerns he had about him.
Then by chance he had read the interview with the woman in Boston who was said to be able to heal, to perform miracles. Apparently many believed in her and said she was a truly good person. Henry, at first sceptical, reading it over and over again, wondered if this Martha McGill person might be able to help him. He had never been the type of man looking for charity or help but reading about the New England housewife and the numbers of people who had claimed to have been healed by her, he couldn’t help but wonder if the Good Lord might see fit to help him, through this woman.
His own Presbyterian faith had always been strong and had sustained him through many difficult years. Growing up he supposed he had never really realized the burden his young brother had placed on their mother and father. He’d been busy at school and then later college and studying to become a teacher, something he had always wanted, the chance to grow and learn himself and the opportunity to open young minds. William had been in and out of special schools and day care facilities since about the age of five, his mother and father ignoring the advice to place him in a state-run institution that could deal with his needs. His mother was insistent she could cope and was not going to put her ‘special child’ away, no matter what the psychologists and psychiatrists recommended.
By twenty his brother was tall and big and a whole heap of trouble, needing constant watching. Henry would relieve some of the pressure on his ageing parents during school holidays, entertaining William, taking him for walks, devising activities that would help to keep him occupied, but he was always grateful when summer ended and he could return to the classroom. Marilyn and Joe Madison were left to manage on their own. They had died within four months of each other and Henry had taken leave from Rigby Junior High to look after his brother temporarily.
The weeks had stretched to months and by the end of the year he knew he would never be able to work a full-time job while his brother needed him. So he had stayed home, correcting exam papers, contributing articles on education and history to various journals, and privately tutoring local students who were weak. The opportunity to have a wife and home and family of his own somehow just passed him by. Sophia Ferrari, the pretty young science teacher he had developed a passion for, was put off for ever after a distressing dinner at their home when William had peed himself. He was not carping about his life, the pattern it had followed, the journeys to Rome and Venice and Paris never taken. His only concern was here and now and what would happen to his brother if he was not able to take care of him . . .