The streetlight was entirely frozen so that from the top, where the lamp should shine its light, icicles hung. If Jimmy were a poetic man he’d have said it was like a crown of thorns. Firemen, crusted with ice, moved across the yard, and behind them stood Jimmy’s house, smoking but no longer blazing. For some reason it made him think of that James Taylor song Bernadette used to sing when she was a teenager. It was so sweet, that innocent girl belting out the lyrics for “Fire and Rain.” But then she was never as innocent as all that, not after Barb died. He reached down to his lower left back and pushed his knuckles against the ever-present ache.
The day Jimmy Murray blew out his back for good he was carrying his new bride, Doris (formerly Sister Theresa), across the recently constructed f
