Marion took that year off college to go to Ireland because she was a devout Catholic and because she was in love with Yeats. In Dublin she met a dockworker named Eamonn whose thick brogue made her giggle, and he seemed duly impressed by her vow of chastity and didn’t try to make any untoward advances like the boys back home. One afternoon he asked if she’d like to come meet his father. They would have to take the train, he said, because his father lived inland, in County Cavan. Marion was charmed by the old-fashioned proposal and accepted, and they agreed to go the following weekend.

On the train Eamonn took a nap while Marion read Yeats’ The Wanderings of Oisin, and then he woke up and began distracting her until they played a game of cards. He was very self-conscious whenever she was reading, and in Dublin he’d confided to her he didn’t like words very much and tried to avoid reading altogether. She was shocked to discover that he was illiterate, for he was tall and bespectacled—he’d cultivated a look akin to Joyce in his youth—and he seemed intelligent in most other ways.

“There’s something I should tell you before we get there,” he said. Outside the green hill and gray rock were independent of the present, and could just as easily have belonged to 1940 as 1890. “My dad and I,” he murmured, “we haven’t talked in a while.”

“What’s a while?” asked Marion, setting down her book.

“Ten years.”

“Ten years like you haven’t seen him?”

“Not talked to him either. Or written. Nothing, really. Fact of the matter is he might not even be there anymore. Still, it’s a beautiful ride through the countryside, isn’t it? This here’s the Ireland they don’t tell you about in the travel brochures.”

“Don’t you think your dad might object to a blow-in like me?” She knew she should feel more petulant, but on the other hand she probably still would have gone.

“No,” Eamonn shrugged again. “He likes the books too.” He grinned reactively and quickly looked away out the window, and Marion suddenly got the feeling she’d been brought along to make a good impression.

They arrived at the train station in Dromod around midday and began walking north. Main Street was a row of varicolored buildings and a closed post office and they passed it while Marion was still waiting to see what would come around the corner. She was hungry and said as much, and Eamonn gave her an apple out of his rucksack. He was more wry than usual, and he kept groping at her waist as if they were a pair of honeymooners. He pointed out an old, gated brick building down the knoll where he’d gone to school, the church, and the pub where he’d first gotten pissed. They passed a bicyclist who waved to them amiably, though whether the rider recognized Eamonn or was just being friendly Marion couldn’t say.

They continued walking for miles until Marion couldn’t see the town behind them anymore. She wasn’t especially frightened, but she had only known Eamonn a couple of weeks and she’d been proven a poor judge of character in the past. They passed a field of sheep and an old stone wall, but there was no fence and there looked to be no farm nearby. There didn’t seem to be anyone living out here.

“Is it very far?” she asked.

“A little ways yet.”

Finally they turned off the main road and down a narrow dirt drive, though any car would have had a rough time making it very far. At the bottom of the hill was a small, whitewashed stone cottage. A clothesline full of wet sheets hung to the right of the building, billowing in the wind, flecked with bits of leaf and dirt. The drapes in the window were closed and no one seemed home. Eamonn sat down on the stoop under the eave and pulled out a cigarette.

“Aren’t you going to knock?” asked Marion.

“No,” muttered Eamonn. “Wouldn’t want to bother them.”

She sat down next to him. “Play a game then?”

Eamonn nodded and pulled out the deck of cards from his rucksack. They played gin rummy and Marion won the first two games but then began to feel sorry that he was losing and let him win the next couple of rounds. Eamonn only really knew how to play poker and Marion had had to teach him gin, but she was hazy on the rules and wasn’t sure they were playing it right, which was another reason she let him win, should she later be accused of playing the game to her advantage.

Eamonn was acting like a schoolboy with a crush the way he kept poking her in the ribs. Marion understood that he was just nervous and that he was teasing her to distract from his own anxiety, but she wished he would knock on the door already. It was getting cold, they’d already been there a couple of hours, and she had to go pee.

Finally they heard a scraping inside. The door opened and a short, round woman with long silver hair in plaits looked down at them. She was wearing a nightgown. “I thought I heard some voices out here,” she said. “You looking for Tom?”

Eamonn nodded.

“He won’t be back before late, you know.”

“That’s fine,” said Eamonn. “We’ll just sit here and wait if it’s all the same to you.”

“You might as well come in then before the neighbors start thinking I’m inhospitable,” she muttered, which was funny to Marion since there clearly weren’t any neighbors around. She shuffled on ahead and Marion closed the door behind them.

“I was just making some eggs and oatmeal if you want some.” She looked at Eamonn, who was keeping his back to the wall, looking around as if he thought any minute some savage beast was going to lash out and strike him. “You’re Tom’s son, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yeah. You’re Tom’s wife?”

“Not yet, love. Still waiting for him to make an honest woman of me.” She got some bowls from the cupboard and spooned out three helpings of oatmeal. “Hope you like your eggs soft-boiled,” she said.

Marion sat down and waited for Eamonn to introduce her, but he was busy shoving his mouth full of egg and oatmeal. The old woman said her name was Oona, and she apologized for the shameful state of her appearance but she’d just woken up. Tom had the late shift at the plastics factory, she explained, and neither had much use for the morning. She made quite a fuss over Marion’s American accent. “I’ve always wanted to go to Florida,” she exclaimed. “Have you ever been to Florida?”

“No,” Marion shook her head. Marion was from Wisconsin.

Eventually they moved to the living room so Oona could listen to the radio. Eamonn was still fidgety, but the food seemed to have calmed his nerves a little. “I’m just going to listen to my shows,” said Oona, “but make yourselves at home.” She looked at Eamonn. “I imagine you know your way around.”

Eamonn looked horrified at the thought, but there was only one extra chair in the living room and if he didn’t want to keep standing there with his rucksack slung over his shoulder and a clunky look on his face, he’d have to do something. Marion wrapped her arm through his. “Come on Eamonn. Why don’t you show me your room?”

It was down at the end of the hall, past the bathroom and a portrait of the Virgin Mary. It had been converted into some kind of study or workroom, and there was a drafting table on one side with an awl and scraps of leather, and on the other a shelf made out of cinder blocks and plywood. Marion stepped closer to take a look. “Are these all your books?” she asked.

“No,” said Eamonn. He was watching her from the doorway. “They’re my dad’s. He collects them.”

“But some of these don’t look like they’ve been opened in years.”

“Well they wouldn’t be, would they? Dad doesn’t know how to read.”

“He’s got all these books and he’s never read any of them?”

“No.”

“But—” Marion was beside herself. There was Death of A Naturalist by Seamus Heaney. There was Beckett’s Mercier and Camier. There was The Dubliners. They were all first editions. It was the most extensive collection of Irish literature Marion had ever seen outside of a library. And there, dropped behind the shelf and covered in cobwebs and dust, was The Celtic Twilight by Yeats. The dampness of the wall had caused the cover to buckle and some of the pages were stained gray with mildew. She pulled it out with great tenderness and care.

Marion had forgotten Eamonn was standing behind her, and she began pulling out the books without reservation, wiping off the dust on the back of her thigh. She didn’t care anymore about Eamonn’s anxiety, and neither did she see any parallels between the books and his relationship with his father. After a while she looked back and he had gone.

Reading the Yeats was a different experience here; there was another narrative following these poems. Marion could almost imagine him writing The Celtic Twilight, the wind lashing against the panes as the words swirled ‘round his brain. They were like little notes written exclusively from him to her: Don’t forget to pick up some milk, they said. Your father’s birthday is tomorrow. I love you. How sensitive stories are to place and time, to temperature, she thought. Like a bottle of wine. Sometimes, whether or not a story or poem succeeded or failed depended entirely on when it was opened, when it was read.

She didn’t hear Eamonn’s father come home but she noticed the cold, all at once, halfway through “The Thick Skull of the Fortunate.” It was dark outside, and she hadn’t even realized that her eyes had begun to strain to read the words. The fireplace in the living room hissed and crackled with warmth. Eamonn had his back to her, sitting opposite an old man who looked just like him, only a little less weak and a little less proud. He was, barring some remarkable chain of events, Eamonn in thirty years. Marion stood in the corner by the doorway and listened in.

“What do you think of Oona?” the old man was asking. “That’s a good woman there.”

“She’s alright,” shrugged Eamonn. Marion could just see the top of his head above the armchair, a little spray of unruly hair poking out the top. “You should’ve married her already.”

“Ach, she knows I’m not the marrying kind anymore.”

“What about the church?”

“Fuck the church!” shouted the old man. “Never given me nothing but grief.” He stared out into the kitchen for a moment, and then said, “You know I still think about her, yeah?”

“Yeah—” Eamonn looked over the chair as if he’d heard something coming in and caught sight of Marion. “Hey,” he said.

“Well, well!” exclaimed the old man. “Here’s the young lady who’s been taking liberties with all my books.”

“I’m sorry,” she smiled. “They’re wonderful.”

“Yeah. They keep out the cold, don’t they? Especially the Joyce. Nice and thick, that. You like the Joyce?”

“I liked Ulysses.”

“Yeah. That’s the thick one, isn’t it? Good for killing rats.” She had the impression he was having a go at her. “You know,” he continued, “I bought that book in 1967 for two quid, the same year I met his here mum. My dad used to collect them too, how about that? Never read any of it myself, but I’ve heard he’s one of the better ones.”

“He is,” she said.

“Yeah.” The old man grinned and punched Eamonn on the shoulder. “Here’s one to keep your hands on, boy! She’s a real catch this one, though Lord knows what she’s doing with a wanker like you.”

Eamonn tried to scowl but smiled in spite of himself, and Marion was struck again by how boyish he seemed; a little vain and proud and naive all at once. Had she been in love with him, or felt anything aside from fleeting interest, it would have been reinforced now by the expression on his face. Instead Marion felt disoriented, like she’d just woken up in the dark without reference to where she was, and embarrassed.

“We should be going soon,” he said. “We’re going to miss the train.”

Eamonn and Marion didn’t talk much walking back to the train station. Each was preoccupied with their own recent discoveries that evening, and neither seemed able to translate their findings to the other. The road was dark and the moon was hidden behind the clouds, but Eamonn seemed to know the way and Marion, still the foreigner, had no choice but to follow him. When they arrived at the train station, a few minutes early, they were the only ones there. Marion sat down on the bench and pulled out her book, and Eamonn stood near the edge of the platform, leaning forward, waiting to see the very first sign of the train coming down the tracks to take them back to Dublin.