they left off, as if there’d been no estrangement at all.
She was racing downhill, considering curved seams and embellishments, the wind drawing her hair into a flame, when the tire hit a pothole, nearly wrenching the handlebars from her hands. She felt her weight go forward—oh, God, she was going to end up in the ditch—but somehow she jumped free at the last second, escaping with a lightly scraped knee. She got up shakily, brushed off her clothes, relieved to see she’d lost no cargo in the mishap. The newsletters were still tied in neat bundles, scattered across the road, awaiting retrieval—and eventual delivery.
She took a moment to catch her breath—she’d certainly had her share of minor misadventures that morning. She should have kept her eyes on the road. She would from now on. She gathered up the newsletters and pushed on, stuffing the papers into mailboxes, some painted with flowers or fish, others a less-imaginative regulation silver or hazard orange. She paused at a crossroads and consulted Bernie’s list: two more to go.
A van seemed to come out of nowhere, careening around the corner, passing close. A horn honking, hand gesturing, conveying irritation she’d stopped there. She caught a glimpse of a face, the look of surprise they shared: it was the man from the cliffs.
“Maniac,” she fumed, her frustration spilling over. He’d almost hit her! And to make matters worse, he didn’t even stop to make sure she was all right.
In his wake, there was only the empty road, a long sigh of dirt and green and crumbled walls and her small, furious self, hurtling through a place so much bigger than she was. She stood up on the pedals, going uphill now, heart beating hard, until her legs were unable to carry her forward. She had to hop off and walk, catch her breath, calm down. Sparks of temper flared, flickered out. The stranger would be in her past soon enough—he already was, wasn’t he?—a character in a story to tell her friends when she went home.
“When are you coming back?” Ella asked in her last e-mail, which Kate had read at a Dublin café over two weeks ago.
I don’t know. Despite the kids and the dog and the driver, she was beginning to like it there. Perhaps it was just as well she’d missed the bus after all.
She’d crested the hill, but others lay ahead, one after another, as far as she could see—and a colorful wagon on the next rise: William. He’d been traveling along a walled lane, so she hadn’t noticed him at first. Her spirits rose. She’d been hoping to see him again. He raised a leather-gloved hand in greeting, recognizing her at once. She glided down the incline, coming to a stop by the wagon.
“I see you’ve graduated to a bicycle,” he said, as if they’d only stopped speaking moments before, adding, when he noticed the dirt on her elbows and knees, “Took a tumble, did you?” He rummaged in his bag and handed her a cloth and water bottle.
She told him what had happened as she cleaned herself up.
“And who said the countryside is dull?” he said, his amusement tempered with a note of caution. “Though you should take care on the roads. Will you be traveling by cycle now?”
“No, I just borrowed it from a friend,” she told him.
“So you’ve made friends in Glenmara? I’m happy to hear it. I thought you might spend some time there. Who are you staying with?”
“Bernie. Bernadette Cullen. I’m helping deliver the Gaelic Voice.”
“A fine paper. Good someone is trying to keep the language alive.”
“Do you know her?”
“I used to come through town and play at the dances,” he said. “She and the other Glenmara girls were fine ones for dancing.”
“Come back with me—I’m sure they’d like to see you.”
“No. I’m just passing through. That’s my way. But I’m glad I ran into you again for another reason too: you dropped this.” He held out the golden thimble. “I found it on the floor of the wagon after you left. Must have come loose when you stepped down. Had a bad link. I fixed it for you.”
“Thank you.” She put the chain around her neck, feeling the reassurance, the metal cool against her skin. “I thought I’d never see it again.”
“You sew, do you?” he asked.
“I used to. Not so much anymore.” She thought of the new designs. And yet they were only sketches, a few marks on a page that probably wouldn’t amount