The night is darker than usual. Rain is lashing against the windows of the small cottage hospital, dwarfed by the surrounding Irish countryside. All the hospital windows are dark, save for one. And inside the dimly-lit room, a woman lies on the small bed. Her thin cotton gown is soaked with sweat, and her brown hair is fanned out around her pale face. She knows she doesn't have long left, but she is trying to hold on for as long as humanly possible.
In the corner stands a small cot, containing a new-born baby boy. People fuss around the cot, trying to placate him; but he is crying at the top of his little lungs for his mother, his little voice going hoarse. However, his mother is unable to help him, as she is dying.
A car drives up to the hospital, going too fast, driving erratically. It screeches to a stop in front of the hospital and the driver gets out, a small, hunched-over man with a large beard and a red face. He stagers over to the door, and shortly afterwards appears in the door of the dimly-lit room, a bottle dangling loosely from his fingers. He tosses the bottle aside and advances on the bed, nurses standing aside to give him room.
He falls on his knees next to the bed, tears collecting in the corners of his crinkled black eyes. He slowly raises a hand to his wife's shoulder, and her eyes open slowly, filling with joy at the sight of him. She cannot speak, but instead raises her own hand, softly holding his hand to her cheek. She smiles, then raises her gaze to the dirty ceiling, closing her eyes calmly one last time. A single tear traces a path down his cheek as he drops his head to the pillow. The only sound in the room is that of the screaming infant.
After an age, he lifts his head, this time to stare at the cot in the corner with venom. The baby's cries have begun to peter off, and the nurses have left him to his grief. No words are spoken, but the intention of the glare would be apparent to anybody else in the room.
And thus begins the life of one James Scott Moriarty.