Gately, the wraith, and the figurants
once hit his wife so hard in the blackout that made him Come In he broke her nose and bent it over flat against her face, which he asked her never to have repaired, as a daily visual reminder of the depths drink sunk him to, so Mrs. O. had gone around with her nose bent over flat against her left cheek—Bud O.’d tagged her with a left cross—until U.H.I.D. referred her to Al-Anon, which eventually nurtured and supported Mrs. O. into eventually telling Bud O. to take a flying fuck to the moon and getting her nose realigned back out front and leaving him for a male Al-Anon in Birkenstock sandals.
Context
A facial deformity deliberately kept: the wife's bent nose conscripted as her husband's sobriety prop, a "daily visual reminder" she has to wear on someone else's behalf — until U.H.I.D., of all outfits, makes the referral that gets her out and gets the nose fixed. One of the very few glimpses of U.H.I.D. as a functioning organization with an actual referral network, quietly doing case-work out beyond Joelle's private doctrine.