HOLYHEAD, 1956 (The Boy From Dublin)

The worst part about leaving home is seeing it in places that it should never be.

Charlie and I were only a few hours into our journey from Dublin to Holyhead when I caught a glimmer of her face in the eyes of a tired woman. She was perched upon a small bench, her face cast to the wind of the open sea. Every line etched upon her skin was pulled tight by years of incurable worry. Her hands were cracked and red, and travelled along the hems of her skirts, caressing the worn cotton as though she were in great demand of self-soothing.

I got the sense that she was searching for someone, though her caramel eyes remained fixed on the crashing waves. She was relentless in this silent observation, even as the sea brine became one with the air, my own eyes watering at the strength of its assault.

“How old are you?” the woman suddenly asked.

My heart skipped a beat. She’d noticed me watching her. I blushed, embarrassed, but quickly repositioned myself to face her head on, as though I was a proper young man of good manners and family name.

“Eighteen,” I answered, deepening my voice.

She gave me a long look. One that was exhausted and weary. I awaited her reply but the woman laid no further remark, merely turning her face back to the sea, something undefinable rippling across her face.

I started to turn away from the woman, keenly aware that she’d found herself trapped in some past memory, her personal history too heavy to carry. I knew enough to know when someone was travelling to a place no one else could possibly reach. But as I reached the handle of the door to the interior of the ferry, the woman spoke again.

“I have a son who is seventeen,” she said, more to the sea than to me. I stopped, turning back to face her. Her auburn hair whipped about her face, only the thickest pieces withstanding the wind’s pummelling, thanks to the tight plait in which her hair was bound.

“Consumption took him six weeks ago,” she continued. She turned to me at last. “Every day, a boy will die while another fights to survive.” Her eyes surveyed me with a haunted look.

“My Michael was meant to be on this ship. With this ticket,” she lifted a hand in the air, a yellow-gold ferry ticket in her hand. “I hope England serves you well.”

With that, she turned back to the sea, and I took my leave.

Inside the ferry, a hundred other Irishmen and women lounged in their best clothes, all anxiously studying the lapping water below the boat. Most were young men, though a few were women with small children. All leaving Ireland in search of a greater beyond.

Returning to my seat beside Charlie, the only friend who dared to make this journey with me, I, too, assumed an identical posture to the ship’s passengers. There in the distant horizon, I caught the edge of England as the sun rose from its foggy shoulders.

And in the soft green pastures that sparkled with dawn’s kiss, I remembered it all as though I’d left it only yesterday.

The house by the sea. The family of fourteen.

A mother named Mary. A father called John.

Six boys. Six girls.

My head collapsed against the cold glass of the ferry’s window. Little crystals of ice were crusted at the bottom of the pane. I closed my eyes and, for the first time in years, I allowed myself to remember my home.

A relic of memory; a tableau within a shattered snow globe.

But memory serves scarce purpose when it is riddled with pain. So I opened my eyes, and shut away the boy I’d once known.

Silently, like a prayer to the approaching horizon, I repeated my name and my new address till each word felt tattooed in my subconscious.

But just as that woman had seen her son in my face, and as I’d seen my mother in hers; upon that first step onto English soil, I felt Ireland everywhere around me.

The mother I’d always have—no matter how far I strayed from her coastlines. For every boy that dies, another of her sons fights to survive.

And I’d be damned if I let her down.

The hardest part about leaving Ireland was realizing that she’d never leave me.