ast cancer and in extreme pain. Through therapy, Dominick realizes that there is plenty for him to live for. He finds inner peace by learning more about himself and by sharing his thoughts and fears. Days before his mothers death, she had given Dominick her fathers autobiography. It was written in Italian (as he had emigrated from Sicily in 1901) and had to be translated. Dominick eventually learns how unfairly his mother was treated and gains a greater respect for her. Her father called the shots and she was used to being told what to do, which explains her obedience and need or submission for an aggressive partner. All her life she was told she was inferior and she had believed it. It does not seem fair to Dominick that she had to endure a life of pain and then die in pain. He does not understand why bad things happen to good people. After years of living in the maximum security institution, Thomas is placed back in the minimum security institution temporarily and then re-released. The world he is set into is not a familiar one and he decides to end his life on the edge of the woods where Ray, he and Dominick spent a fishing weekend in 1962 as children. Ironically, Thomas killed himself in the same place where he recalls finding a dead squirrel which appeared to have somewhat of an impact on his life. "One thing I remember about that trip was this dead squirrel that someone had trapped inside a firebox. They'd put a bunch of rocks on top to keep him trapped in there. He was all huddled up in a corner, but you could tell he'd gone mental trying to get out. There was crusty black blood around his mouth and he stank and bugs had eaten out his eyes. Ray lifted him out with a stick and flung him. He didn't land all the way in the woods: he landed right on the edge. I wanted to bury him and have a funeral, but Ray told me to stop the sissy stuff. All the time we were there, you could see that dead squirrel right out in p...
