claim, and I double-checked to make sure the urn hadn’t been confiscated before renting a car to drive northwest to Sligo, where I would stay for a few days while I explored nearby Dromahair. I hadn’t adequately prepared myself to drive on the wrong side of the road and spent much of the three-hour journey to Sligo weaving across the road and screaming in terror, unable to enjoy the landscape for fear I would miss a sign or hit an oncoming car.
I rarely drove in Manhattan; there was no reason to own a car. But Eoin had insisted I learn how and get a driver’s license. He said freedom was the ability to go wherever your heart called, and growing up, we’d driven up and down the East Coast on little vacations and adventures. The summer I turned sixteen, we spent July crossing the entire United States, starting in Brooklyn and ending in Los Angeles. That is when I learned to drive, traversing long stretches of highway between small towns that I would never see again. Over rolling hills, through the red cliffs of the West, across the expanse of nothing and everything with Eoin at my side.
I’d memorized “Baile and Aillinn” by Yeats as we drove, a narrative poem filled with legend and longing, death and trickery, and love that transcended life. Eoin had held the dog-eared copy of Yeats’s poetry, listening to me stumble through lines, gently correcting me, and helping me pronounce the Gaelic names of the old legends until I could deliver each line and verse like I had lived it. I had a passion for Yeats, who was obsessed with the actress Maud Gonne, who gave her love to a revolutionary instead. Eoin let me ramble on about things I thought I understood—but only romanticized—like philosophy and politics and Irish nationalism. Someday, I told him, I wanted to write a novel set in Ireland during the Rising of 1916.
“Tragedy makes for great stories, but I’d much rather your story—the one you live, not the ones you write—be filled with joy. Don’t revel in tragedy, Annie. Rejoice in love. And once you find it, don’t let it go. In the end, it is the one thing you won’t regret,” Eoin had said.
I was not interested in love beyond what I could read on a page. I spent the next year pestering Eoin to take me to Ireland, to Dromahair, the little town where he’d been born. I wanted to attend the Yeats festival in Sligo, which Eoin said wasn’t far from Dromahair, and perfect my Gaelic. Eoin had insisted I learn, and it was the language of us, of our life together.
Eoin had refused. It was one of the few times we fought. I spoke in a bad Irish accent for two months to torture him.
“You’re tryin’ too hard, Annie. If you have to think about the way your tongue is movin’ in your mouth, then it doesn’t sound natural,” he’d coached, wincing.
I redoubled my efforts. I was relentless in my fixation. I wanted to go to Ireland. I went so far as to call a travel agent to help me. Then I presented the arrangements, complete with dates and pricing options, to Eoin.
“We’re not going to Ireland, Annie. It’s not time. Not yet,” he said, a stubborn set to his chin, rejecting my travel brochures and itineraries.
“When will it be time?” I wheedled.
“When you’ve grown.”
“What? But I’m grown now,” I insisted, still holding on to the accent.
“See there? That was perfect. Natural. No one would know you’re an American,” he said, attempting to distract me.
“Eoin. Please. It’s calling me,” I moaned theatrically, but I was sincere in my fascination. It did call to me. I dreamed about it. I yearned for it.
“I believe that, Annie. I believe it is. But we can’t go back yet. What if we go and we never come back?”
The thought had filled me with wonder. “Then we’ll stay! Ireland needs doctors. Why not? I could go to college in Dublin!”
“Our life is here now,” Eoin argued. “The time will come. But not now, Annie.”
“Then we’ll just visit. Just a trip, Eoin. And when it’s over, no matter how much I love it and want to stay, we’ll come home.” I thought I was being so reasonable, and his adamancy confused me.
“Ireland is not safe, Annie!” he said, losing his temper. The tips of his ears were red, and his eyes flashed. “We’re not going. Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, girl. Let