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When her husband brought her in from Berwick to meet them for the first time, her would-be in-laws hadn’t seemed too bothered about her, least of all over her being Irish. When she married in, they’d been satisfied that she was religious, domestic, and eager for children. Especially after she gave their family name two more sons, they were fine to leave her alone and found something else to fuss over. No one cared much about her own history. Then the fire started, and she never fucking heard the end of it.
It’s been a hundred years done and gone at this point, but there’s nothing better to do in small towns than let memories and grudges run long. Being kin to one of the Mollies who beat the priest was now an offense so serious, you’d think she’d been the one who spoke the prophesy, that she was the one who said the town would be erased with only their church left standing, that she was the one who damned them all.
That is what they think, though. They blame her in hindsight for the curse coming to fruition, and say, you, of all people, shouldn’t have named your firstborn Daniel. They tell her anyone related to the Molly Maguires, no matter how far removed, should know how the iniquities of the fathers are visited down to the third and fourth generations and shouldn’t have let herself be deceived; God is not mocked.
She didn’t do it to mock God or bring down the righteous anger of Father Daniel Ignatius McDermott. She did it because she was scared, out of place in her husband's home, feeling like she was throwing her son into a lion’s den. She hadn’t meant to throw him into the furnace, too.
Her daughter, born after the fire spread, she named Hannah because she could have used a little grace in her life, but also because, even while holding her daughter, she couldn’t forget how she’d been made a spectacle and ridiculed by her own family while her husband asked, “Why do you care? Aren’t I enough?”
But her second child, baptized in their church down the road from the landfill, when it hadn’t yet been set alight, was named in a fit of spite against the small town attitude that hadn’t quite turned on her, hoping he would conquer and leave this place behind.
Vincent has conquered in his own gentle way, because truly nothing, bar her long dead relation punching a priest, has pissed off her husband's family more than making Vinny happy.
They’re mad he’d rather be at home playing pretend with Hannah instead of tagging after Danny? Good. He’s still seven for another month and change; he doesn’t need to be trying to keep up with a twelve year old, out in the woods looking for steam vents, peering into sinkholes, and whatever else her eldest swears he doesn’t do when she isn’t watching.
They complain he’s too bookish? Sure, and no other seven year old is getting Latin lessons from Father Burke, and no one else saw his face light up when she agreed to his staying late after school once a week. It’s worth all the grief heaped on her for “keeping him cooped up indoors” the first time she heard him saying et verbum caro factum est—and the word was made flesh—to himself.
Nothing she does concerning him would make them happy now, so she doesn’t think a thing of it when, after the first communion commotion dies down, he asks to bring his friend to the get-together celebrating his big day.
His friend’s a little strange for a town this size. He’s older than Vinny, but so much smaller. He’s been in their church since he was born, but he hasn’t made his first communion. He’ll only answer to his unusual nickname. He’s a little bit of a spectacle, too.
If her in-laws screw up their faces when they see her leading her kids back home with Habit in tow, it’s just another drop in the bucket.