The Ceili was a notorious pickup bar, but that wasn’t why Moira went every Friday after work, regular as clockwork. One-night stands didn’t tempt her. No, indeed. She’d been raised better than that. No, she went for the bands, she did. It was her own little weekly nostalgia trip, nursing a single Guinness all evening, tapping her foot to the wild Irish music that cracked her heart open just a little, just enough to remind her of home, every time. She was happy in America, she was. A trip back to the old country once every two years was all she needed to keep on an even keel. A few weeks in Doro in County Donegal always reminded her all over again why she’d followed Aunt Meg to America. After a short time, she felt cramped by how small her hometown was, how far from Dublin, how narrow her old schoolmates’ lives seemed. No, she wasn’t homesick. She’d made a good life for herself in America, and there was no turning back. But, oh, how the music misted her up. It was just like being home of a warm, rainy summer evening at Aunt Aideen’s house, all the Fitzgerald cousins having a couple too many under their belts, which God knows never stopped them from singing in perfect harmony.
