‘And if I do write, you must write back Séamus Doyle, you must, or what will I know of you in years to come?’ She stood also, and moved to his side. He wrapped his strong arms around her and she leant her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
‘I’ll try Maggie, but I’m not the best with my words, you know that.’ Gazing into the flames over Maggie’s shoulder he desperately wished that their circumstances could be different. ‘Maybe I can ask Bridie to help,’ he added, as an afterthought.
Maggie pulled back from his embrace and looked at him now, seriously. ‘Yes, do that. Get Bridie to help with your letters ‘cos I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t hear a word from you. Promise me you’ll do that?’
‘I promise.’
They’d stood then in their fireside embrace for a few moments longer, until Kathleen entered the house and reminded Séamus that it was getting dark out and he should be making his way home to his Da.
Over the following days, weeks and months, Maggie and Séamus hadn’t talked again of her impending journey to America, continuing with their usual routines and meeting under the sixth blossom tree on a Wednesday after market. They talked of the passing of the Home Rule Bill, the sowing of the potatoes, the cutting of the turf, the hurling and the Gaelic League. They watched the snow fall on the mountain tops, the buds form on the blossom trees and the lambs frolic in the fields. Maggie would usually enjoy these predictable, seasonal events which marked the passing of the months better than any calendar ever could, but now the natural rhythms of nature she observed in every melting snowflake, each budding leaf, brought her and the thirteen other residents of their small community closer to the day when they would leave Ballysheen; closer to the day when she would leave Séamus.
They’d said their final goodbyes after Sunday Mass; the last the would-be travellers would attend in their local church.
‘I’ll not be comin’ to any American wake Maggie,’ he’d told her, aware of the traditions and plans to see off the fourteen travellers over the next few nights with music and drinking. ‘I’ll not be mournin’ you until you’re dead in a box on the kitchen table. So this will be my goodbye.’
He’d pressed a set of rosary beads and a silver hair comb into her hands and promised that he would write. ‘And when you come back Maggie Murphy, I’ll be waiting, under our tree.’
*
That was where he stood now; under the sixth blossom tree.
Maggie watched a slow, sad smile spread across his lips as she gasped and raised a hand to her chest at the sight of him. She walked forwards in a daze, hardly noticing the traps which she passed or the horses nuzzling into their nosebags and kicking impatiently at the ground.
‘You came.’ Her voice was barely a whisper, her hands trembling as they reached out to take hold of his. ‘You came after all.’
They stood and looked at each other for a moment, neither one of them able to move, neither one of them knowing what to say.
‘Yes, Maggie. I came. But I’m not saying goodbye again. I just wanted to give ye this.’
He handed her a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with a single piece of fraying string.
She turned it over in her hands. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s my letters Maggie.’ She looked at him, not understanding, tears pricking her eyes. ‘These are my letters to you in America. I’ve been writin’ them for the last while, y’know, on quiet evenin’s and when I had a moment free. I asked Bridie to help me. I wasn’t sure how long a letter would take to get to America, so I figured that this way you can read them whenever ye like and won’t have to be waiting on any deliveries.’
The sudden cry of a cockerel nearby made one of the horses skitter, the metal fastenings on the harness jangling noisily against its sturdy flanks until the jarvey shushed and soothed it.
‘But Séamus, I….’ Maggie’s emotions washed over her now, all of the despair, all of the suppressed worry and uncertainty about the journey ahead suddenly overwhelming her. She allowed her tears to fall freely as she clutched the simple packet of letters in her hands.
‘And when you’re planning on coming back home, you can write to tell me,’ Séamus continued, grasping the tops of Maggie’s shoulders to impress his words upon her. ‘I’ll wait here for you as usual. Every Wednesday after market. I’ll wait until you come back Maggie Murphy.’ He paused, righting himself to stand tall and taking in a deep, long breath. ‘You will come back one day won’t ye? Come back and be the girl I remember? Be the same Maggie Murphy; the girl who came home?’