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nice view when the sun was shining but it could get very damp and grey when it rained and sadness hung in the air.
    “Would you mind if we came in?” asked the nurses who had gathered in the doorway. “We just want to say congratulations to Danny on his big day.”
    They squeezed into the room crinkling their starched white linens, followed by two nuns draped in flowing black whispers. The nurses took turns squeezing him and slipping coins into his hand but the nuns just patted his cheek and handed him little medals—St. Christopher and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
    “God bless you, Danny!” they all agreed and told him he looked like a saint–or an angel.
    “I’m afraid it’s getting late and we should be leaving,” Granny announced when the fuss died down, and while the presence of the nuns would discourage Jacinta from protesting. “I have to get Danny home in time for his tea.”
    “But we only just got here,” Danny said, forgetting his manners and his vague understanding of the situation.
    “Now Danny,” the nuns admonished.
    “But I’ve hardly had a chance to see him.” Jacinta rose to take him in her arms.
    “You mustn’t get excited,” the nuns reminded her. “What would the doctor say if he knew?”
    The nuns pried them apart, faces stoic beneath their veils, and ushered the nurses out.
    Danny’s mother smiled wearily as if there was nothing she could do. Even Danny could see that. He wanted her to say something so he could spend a few minutes with her alone but she had begun to shrivel again.
    “Can I just say goodbye to Ma before we go?” He knew if he pleaded just right that he would get his way and Granny and the nuns would withdraw to the hallway outside.
    But they left the door open.
    “It’s so good to see you, Danny boy. I can’t believe how big you’re getting. Did your daddy call you?”
    “He did, last weekend, and he says he’ll be home soon and that he is going to give me a fiver.”
    “Ah, that’ll be grand.”
    “But I really want him to buy me a pair of football boots, you know, like the ones Johnny Giles wears.”
    “We’ll ask him, then. I’m sure he’ll know the right ones.” But she didn’t sound convincing. Her face was sad, almost without hope.
    Danny searched for something to change that: “And when he comes I’m going to ask Granny if he and I can come and see you on our own.” It was all he had to offer.
    “Ah, that would be lovely. That gives me something to look forward to.” She reached out to take him back into her arms.
    “Danny,” his granny called from the doorway. “We have to leave now.”
    Danny hesitated but his mother just nodded. “Go on now, Danny boy, and don’t be keeping your granny waiting. There’s a good boy.”
    He turned again from the doorway but his mother had her head down, like she might be falling asleep, except her shoulders were shuddering a little. “Bye Ma,” he called as the nuns closed like a curtain between them, muffling any answer she might have made.
    **
    “When I grow up,” Danny announced when they were back home, as he dipped his chips into the broken yolks of his fried eggs, “after I’m finished being the president and playing football, I’m going to become a doctor. But not the type that just give people pills and lock them up. I’m going to be the type of doctor that actually makes people better.”
    “I think you should be a priest, instead,” Granny answered without turning around from her sink of soapy dishes. She said she wanted to tidy up before they had the cake she bought—just for the day that it was. It was yellow and spongy with a soft cream layer in the middle. It had hard, sweet icing with lemon jelly wedges coated in sugar. Granny would even let Danny pick them off her slice. “A priest can do far more good than a doctor.”
    “Father Reilly said that only the doctors can help Ma. I asked him at Confession.”
    “I’m sure he meant something else. Only God can help your