Her work kept the grief at bay until she let down her pen, let down her guard, and it crashed into her as a blindsided punch. But still she kept writing—the work wasn’t profound, she knew that much, but it was honest. It conveyed some small truths. She wrote about how she’d squelched her hurt with travel and adventure; about how she’d avoided intimacy by finding fault in others; she understood slowly and quietly that she could not wait for a man to save her life just as she could not blame a man for ruining it.

After they landed, she moved dreamlike and sleep deprived through the customs line, making small talk with a tall man and his son headed to a golf trip. Colleen felt both untethered and elated as she looked for her bag. Although she hadn’t yet stepped her feet onto the green earth, the mantra I am in Ireland; I am in the land of my birth wound around and around her thoughts like yarn binding her close and safe.

After cashing in her U.S. dollars for euros at the exchange stand, she exited the airport and stood in the soft air of Ireland. It was just another airport, another city, just like the hundreds of others she’d found herself cast upon after a long flight, and yet it was anything but just another city. She stood still for a long while, breathing in and out, wishing she’d slept on the plane, and trying to catalog everything in her sight: sunlight creeping along the grass; the varied accents like musical notes; the soft scents of fresh-cut grass; the gray industrial buildings that might belong to any airport.

“May I help you?” A thin man in a fisherman’s cap startled Colleen and she jumped, dropping her backpack onto the sidewalk as her cast banged against its edges.

“No. I’m good.” She leaned over to pick up her pack and then smiled at the older man with wrinkles on his face like fissures, but pleasant in the creases of his smile. “Just needing a taxi.”

“Well, then you’re in luck.” He tipped his hat and spoke in a brogue so lovely Colleen thought she wanted to record that simple sentence. He pointed at the black taxi directly behind him. “Where would you be needing to go, miss?”

“County Clare.” Colleen rattled off the address of the pub, which she’d already memorized. There was no use in wasting time. If she’d traveled this far to see the place, then she would go straight there.

“Well, that’s grand, let’s be on our way.”