Part One

**Dear Mum,

Just got back from yet another adventure with Sydney, another one in which we escaped by the skin of our teeth.

But this one was different. We were in Ireland, right smack dab in the middle of Senegal Downs, and all I could think about was how I was walking on the same narrow cobblestone streets you walked as a little girl. I felt like I was coming home, in a way, because you always made the place come alive for Preston and me when we were growing up.

It was like I saw things through your eyes. St. Mary's Convent--its walls are still whitewashed twice a year, and the nuns still sweep the stones twice a day. The rose garden was in bloom. Sydney bought a bottle of the attar they sell to build the treasury. I couldn't tell her not to wear it, but the scent was so thick around us it was like going back home and smelling your perfume all over again.

Ah, and the hills...

They were just as extraordinary as you described them. I now believe it was more than a story--I believe God really did gather up the most precious, perfect emeralds, and deciding they were too spectacular to keep them for the rich, he scattered the gems over the sea and called them Ireland.

I met Uncle Henry and Aunt Tilly, saw at least a dozen or so cousins. They didn't know who I was, of course, and I didn't enlighten them. I visited Grandma Shannon's grave and planted the violets, just like you always said you wanted to do. Sydney helped me without ever really knowing why. I wish you could meet Sydney, Mum. You'd like her, I'm certain of it. She's really a lovely girl.

There in Senegal Downs, there were times I swore I could feel you walking beside me, and could hear your voice reciting the stories you told us when we were children. I wish you had been there.

I wish you were here now.

I miss you, Mum.

Love,
Nigel**

The young man sighed, stretching to relieve the kinks in his neck. The pale gold halo of his desk lamp poured over a well-proportioned face, blue-green eyes, and a sweep of straight brown hair that had a tendency to fall over his eyes. The faint trace of a five o'clock shadow painted his jaw; he'd forgone a shave tonight, devoting the time instead to his emotional epistle.

Nigel folded the page and inserted it into the envelope, licking and sealing the letter. Foregoing a stamp, he filed it away in a drawer full of letters. Every time his mother called, she begged him to write her. He promised faithfully to write, and he kept his promise.

Turning the lock on the metal cabinet, he sighed again and clicked off the lamp. **If only he'd kept his promise,** he told himself for the thousandth time, **while she was alive.**

He padded barefoot into his tiny bedroom, the dormitory space that was so far removed from the magnificent surroundings where he'd grown up in England. It was home now, but at moments like these the homesickness threatened to overwhelm him. Suddenly the solitude closed around him, threatening to swallow him up in its vacuum.

He reached for the phone by his bed and dialed Sydney's number, but when her sleep-slurred voice answered, he offered a quick, quiet apology and assured her he was all right. He eased the handset back into its cradle and lay back in the darkness, drifting off within moments and dreaming of glittering green jewels in an azure ocean.

Go to Part Two


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