cozy and your father can tell you a story about how Cuchulain became a Catholic and you fall asleep and dream about the pig standing in the crib at the Redemptorist church crying because he and the Baby Jesus and Cuchulain all have to grow up and die. The angel that brought Margaret and the twins comes again and brings us another brother, Michael. Dad says he found Michael on the seventh step of the stairs to Italy. He says that’s what you have to watch for when you ask for a new baby, the Angel on the Seventh Step. Malachy wants to know how you can get a new brother from the Angel on the Seventh Step if you don’t have any stairs in your house and Dad tells him that asking too many questions is an affliction. Malachy wants to know what an affliction is. Affliction. I’d like to know what that word means. Affliction, but Dad says, Och, child, the world is an affliction and everything in it, puts on his cap and goes to the Bedford Row Hospital to see Mam and Michael. She’s in the hospital with the pain in her back and she has the baby with her to make sure he was healthy when he was left on the sev- enth step. I don’t understand this because I’m sure angels would never leave a sick baby on the seventh step.There’s no use asking Dad or Mam about this. They say,You’re getting as bad as your brother for asking questions. Go play. I know that big people don’t like questions from children.They can ask all the questions they like, How’s school? Are you a good boy? Did you say your prayers? but if you ask them did they say their prayers you might be hit on the head. Dad brings Mam home with the new baby and she has to stay in bed for a few days with the pain in her back. She says this baby is the spitting image of our sister who died,with his wavy black hair,his lovely blue eyes, and the gorgeous eyebrows.That’s what Mam says. I want to know if the baby will be spitting. I also want to know which is the seventh step because there are nine steps on the stairs and I’d like to know if you count from the bottom or the top. Dad doesn’t mind answering this question.Angels come down from above, he says, and not up from kitchens like ours which are lakes from October till April. So I find the seventh step by counting from the top. . . . 102