After the ceremony at the grave, a young boy, also one of Timmy’s brothers, walked back to me.

“You Ellen?” he asked.

I said, “Yes, I am,” and he handed me a small envelope. I opened it, shielding it

from the rain. In it, I found a ragged piece of paper.

It was a poem. I never learned who wrote it, but I still remember the words:

There is a lady sweet and kind,

Was never face so pleased my mind;

I did but see her passing by,

And yet I love her till I die.

The boy told me that Timmy had torn it from his book just before he died and told him, “Give it to Ellen, the beautiful girl with the red hair.”

Nellie left for America less than a year later, and I followed within six months. I couldn’t bear being so close to Timmy, but yet so far.

We settled in Dennis, Massachusetts, a small bayside town in the north center of Cape Cod. Nellie and I lived with my Uncle Pat’s family. They had plenty of room. Uncle Pat owned an Irish pub in Harwich, where Nellie and I both took jobs.

I had moved thousands of miles from Ireland, yet I still walked the Dennis beaches each morning, and, every once in a while, I thought I heard Timmy calling me, “Ellen … Ellen.”

Then one morning some months later, all of us made the almost obligatory pilgrimage to the Barnstable County Fair in Falmouth, at the western end of the Cape. When we arrived, Nellie went off with some of the children while I set out by myself.

Just like the old days, I was naturally drawn to the baking, jam, jelly, and flower exhibits. I recalled how Mum and Grammy, usually reserved women, would become fiercely competitive whenever they entered their creations into those contests that usually highlight the Irish country fairs. I could picture them flitting among the tasters to see how they were faring.

I gradually moved to the livestock areas which had always been my father’s bailiwick. He was one of the most respected animal judges in all of West Meath. I finally worked my way from the cattle stalls to the sheep pens.

I stopped at one of the pens and was looking over some small lambs — tiny balls of wool they were. Just then, the young farm hand at the far side of the pen turned slowly and greeted me with a slight wave of his hand. But when he doffed his hat out of courtesy, a shock of jet-black hair fell across his forehead and his dark eyes smiled, and he winked at me.