Redamancy Grey's Anatomy

₀․ PENANCE

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RELIGIOUS ANXIETY WAS SOMETHING SHE COULDN'T DENY BEHOLDING.

She had spent her whole childhood under the watchful eyes of priests and nuns; listening to their words, seeking penance for her "sins", and confessing every week like she was running from Satan. She was deemed too stuck up, the "mom" friend throughout most of her childhood until she had Father Paul tell her she was a bastard child and would be damned to Hell either way. He had said it with such nonchalance, as if this was a fact that she should've accepted since she was a mere infant. (Why do you try, James, when, in the end, you'll never see those gates?) She had ran to her parents, tears streaming down her face and worry etched deeply into her heart. She could recall the way she asked, while they remained unaware of her turmoil, if she was doomed to suffer-- was she not her father's daughter? She was always told they were so similar. She was always by his side. (Us James's gotta stick together, buggie.) They wouldn't lie to her, would they?

Jamie remembered the tears that streaked Carolyn's face as James explained that it was all so complicated. That her mother, her "real" mother, loved her dearly but thought that her father was a better fit to take care of her. It was a bunch of chatter she didn't understand. But she did understand one thing: her mother, who she loved so dearly and wished to be like her, was not really her mother but a stand in. It was something that made her mind muddled but Carolyn looked so broken as she held her child's cheeks in her hands. 

You'll be my daughter as much as they are, She had reassured as Jamie stared directly at the tip of her nose. I love you just as dearly and know you just as much. 

It'd been a mess trying to collect herself after that (she would argue that she never did) but she did trust them again. Although her religious resolve had shook, she didn't doubt that she could work hard and prove herself to be a good person. 

Then her father died.

There was this weird shift in herself where she blamed God. Her mother had always run her fingers through her hair and reassured her that all she needed to do was sit beside her bed, on her knees, clasp her hands tight, thank the Lord for his good givings, and ask God nicely for a good day tomorrow. He's always listening, everyone reassured. But Jamie had done the same, as she curled up in the bathtub, her mother silent as she poured cups of water down her back, shaky breaths leaving her as she cried. Jamie listened to the soft cries of her siblings in the other room while her grandmother tended to their tears. She had asked God one thing:

Could you bring my dad back?

He didn't listen. Jamie had woken the next day and it was just as barren as before. She could recall getting even more skeptical about his existence. Why would he want her to suffer? Her mother and her siblings? All mourning, all heartbroken over his absence. God had played some bitter part; he had made those men so desperate and so angry that they took her father from her. Jamie had lost her faith at some crucial point; she gave up on her confessions, her prayers. She no longer cared about kneeling before her bed, conforming to his will. She just wanted her father back.

NEW YORK TIMES  ( crime )                                                                                                          MAY 14TH 1978    

Man is gunned down in his corner store. NYPD Commissioner Michael Codd suspects that it may be linked to previous local robberies. Mourning wife pleads to public for any information.  (Read more below.)