There were fourteen trees in total, flanking the lane between Maggie’s stone cottage and the lake. Fourteen she thought to herself. One for each of us who will make this journey. She had loved the blossom trees and their candy-coloured blooms since she was a young child; loved watching the fragile petals as they fluttered like snowflakes to the ground. Over the last year, she had developed a particular affection for the sixth tree on the lane as it was here that she and Séamus met every Wednesday after market. It had been his idea and the arrangement had suited them well. She thought about him now and wondered whether he might change his mind and come to see her one last time. She almost didn’t dare hope and closed her eyes to stop the tears coming.
‘Right so, Maggie, the traps are ready. It is time.’
Maggie jumped at the sudden sound of her aunt’s clipped voice behind her; her heart leaping in her chest and her breath catching in her throat. This was it then. It was really going to happen.
Even when she had seen the words ‘Gone to U.S.A’ written alongside her name on the school register, she hadn’t quite been able to believe that this stark fact, written in the distinctive handwriting of Miss Gallagher, her school mistress, actually related to herself. But it did, and after the months of discussing, planning and hat-buying, it was time.
‘Fetch the others will you,’ her aunt continued as she busied herself, wrapping the still-warm bread rolls in muslin cloths before placing them in the top of her suitcase where she could easily reach them during the several hours of journeying which lay ahead of them to the port of Queenstown in County Cork. ‘And tell them to hurry. We still have to collect our tickets from Mr Durcan in town and we don’t want to be late for the train.’
Eager to please her aunt, as always, Maggie walked out of the narrow farmhouse doorway to inform the others that it was time to leave. Shivering in the cool, morning air she pulled her green, woollen shawl tighter around her shoulders as she stepped over the cat which was curled up on the doormat. She envied its ignorance of the events unfolding around them.
‘And never mind the train,’ her aunt called after her. ‘I doubt whether that big ship will wait on us either.’
Maggie turned.
Kathleen stood in the cottage doorway, filling the space with her ample frame. Her hands were placed on her hips, an authoritative stance she often took, even when she was chatting casually to a friend. Her long, black skirts skimmed the top of the stone step, the billowing tops of the leg-of-mutton sleeves on her fashionable, white blouse touching either side of the doorframe, her thick, chestnut hair swept up impeccably around her angular face in the American style. Maggie thought she could almost detect a smile at the edges of her thin lips. Her aunt wasn’t usually one to express many emotions other than a sense of satisfaction for a job well done, so the slight smile was somewhat surprising.
For her Aunt Kathleen and two other women, Maura Brennan and Ellen Joyce, who were among their party of fourteen, this was a journey without the uncertainties which preoccupied Maggie’s imagination and the sorrow which troubled her heart. For them, this was a journey back to their American homes as much as it was a journey away from their Irish ones; her aunt would be returning to the sister and the Chicago home she loved, Maura and Jack Brennan were heading out to start a new married life together and Ellen was returning, along with her wedding trousseau, to marry her beloved fiancée. No wonder these women could afford a moment of carefree laughter under the blossom trees or a wry smile on the doorstep of the home they might never see again.
Almost as quickly as the smile had crossed her aunt’s lips it faded and Maggie watched her turn back into the house then, with a swish of her skirts, to fetch the last of their belongings.
Maggie wandered over to Peggy and the Brennans who were still messing about under the trees.
‘It’s time,’ she announced, noting how beautiful the blossom looked in the early morning light.
Her words caused the others to stop their playing and a more sombre mood fell over them immediately. It was Jack Brennan who spoke.
‘Right so Maggie, we’ll be right there.’
She nodded at him in reply before stooping to pick up a few petals, admiring their fragile construction and breathing in their sweet scent. She put them, absent-mindedly, into her coat pocket and went on her way. She walked briskly, her sturdy black boots feeling unusually heavy as they crunched on the shale and stones which formed the roughshod road through their village.
Maggie felt an eerie stillness about Ballysheen that morning as she walked from house to house, knocking at the door and quietly telling those inside that it was time. It was as if the village, and all its inhabitants, had taken in a deep breath and were afraid to let it out.