It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 109: Chapter VII

Coarse, Offensive and Racial Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

By the Grace of God, Detective Alanna Kathleen Mooney awoke in the middle of the fourth night of recovery. One of the many machines attached to her person shrilly announced a return to the land of the living.

Alan Carr was very glad that he was there for his sister's revival. He had been afflicted with tremendous guilt over his first thought upon viewing her in the bed and had tried very hard to walk back his prayer. Niamh, always hovering, first noticed the unusual movement in her daughter's eyes. She burst into tears and screamed with joy as they opened. Christopher's usual pacing was at last rewarded, and he forced his way to the bed and took his wife's hand, bending down and kissing her tenderly on the head. Colin ran to fetch the nurse, while Alan hovered in the dark corner, a good enough eye line to see that this was not some collective hallucination. He watched as the Fat One's head turned side to side as best it could with the long tube running out of her mouth. Alanna fixed her gaze first on her husband, and it could have been sworn that she smiled. Then she looked at her mother, and there was nothing but mild disgust; and then she found her brother, and there was no feeling whatsoever.

It had never occurred to Alfonso Ignatius (the Second), in any of his iterations, until that moment, how much she resembled the Specter. Even in near-death, there was no mistaking the primal hunger in her face. And in that moment, the most inexplicable thought came to the brother:
 

I don't want to be seen.

Then move on.

Later that night, at home, Alan Carr drank himself to sleep. It felt good, and it felt right; and he only stopped when the room spun him to sleep.

Alanna had survived, and now he could move on!

In the end...it didn't matter.

Everything is still fine.

As with all things in Mother-City, the attention given to the Father Peter's murder, the shooting of Detective Mooney, and the suicide of the Evil Daniel McKeen, waned. By all accounts, the story had a happy ending, and therefore did not need to be considered much longer. The crowds at the hospital entrance dissipated. The news found better spectacle elsewhere. The well-wishes stopped. As is natural, life moved on.

Yet, for the family of Alanna Kathleen, both born and found, the story did not end with their loved one waking. For them, it was only a beginning. A joining was underway. Niamh, not at all thrilled that her eldest daughter had kept her marriage a secret, complained vociferously. 'Why would she do a thing like that? It's like she's embarrassed of us!' But what really annoyed the matriarch was that the shooting had deprived her of any legitimate grandchildren. Of the many internal injuries Alanna Kathleen had gained from Danny McKeen's bullet, none pained Niamh more so than the promise the doctors had given the wounded.

'You won't have children now.'

At the news, Niamh had burst into tears, but Alanna merely looked bored and said nothing.
'I'd make a wonderful Nana,' Niamh later confided in her son. 'Not that I want to be one, understand. I'm too young for all that. But I would have! No hope in it now. Both my daughters...' she gripped at her throat as if the thought of her female offspring was too much to bare and shook her head. 'What am I to do, Alfonso?'

'I could have children,' said Alan, more annoyed with the implication that he could not, rather than any actual yearning.

Niamh missed the point, but rather found the statement the right sort of hilarious. She chuckled for most of the afternoon, and her spirits so suddenly lifted, resolved herself to accept wha the Good Lord had given her.