“It’s just a cotton field, darlin’.” Mayflower’s voice drifted over my shoulder. “As common in Texas as ticks on a coon dog. You should see them out west of here—fields and fields of them stretching on forever. They sure do make a lovely sight, don’t they? If you were up close, you’d see those are white flowers on the plants. We call them bolls. In another day or two they’ll turn pink, and the field will look as if it’s lit by sunset.”

Back in the car, Mayflower decided to give me an education on the vegetation I was seeing.

“Them tall, green stalks over there,” she said, “they’re maize. It’s a kind of corn the Mexicans brought here. And them trees, they’re pecan trees.”

I looked over at rows and rows of leafy trees bending toward each other to make an arch.

“Too bad y’all got here too late in the year to see the bluebonnets. It’s like nature threw a blue carpet all over the state. The sight of them has made grown men cry. So beautiful. God surely has blessed Texas!”

Again, I heard the same pride in Mayflower’s voice as I’d heard when she showed me around Dallas. This woman truly loved Texas.

I put down my head and closed my eyes. I was now well and truly in a strange and fascinating land. I’d never heard of cotton plants or maize stalks or pecan trees. And these were only the things I’d seen so far. What else was out there across the state of Texas—a state so vast that Ireland would fit into it eight times over?

My stomach tightened at the thought of Ireland. I’d been so busy exploring Texas that I’d hardly thought about Donegal. How different the two worlds were. I pictured Da carrying turf in a pail down the hill toward the cottage. No exotic plants grew on the rough, rocky land around Kilcross. It was hard enough to find places where sheep and cows could graze. Even in other parts of the county, between the wild gales that blew in from the Atlantic and the frequent rain—sometimes falling in buckets, sometimes fine as mist—crop farms were scarce.

I wondered then, as I hadn’t done for a long time, what Nora would have thought of Texas. I smiled to myself. She’d have liked Dallas, with its fashionable shops and swanky houses, but she would hardly have been impressed with cotton fields or pecan trees, and she’d have been tortured by the heat. Nora would never have adjusted to Texas the way I was beginning to. Had fate intervened to correct the mistake Ma had surely made by choosing Nora to work for Aidan? A tiny twinge of guilt twisted my stomach. Would it ever leave me?