‘Am I too late for the wake?’ Our neighbour, Abina, pulled her shawl tighter on her skinny shoulders and peered greedily around our little house, eyeing the food set out on the table in the corner.

‘You know well you’re the first here,’ said Bridget. ‘Aren’t you always?’ Mammy glared at her, and Bridget looked ashamed.

‘Should I try a little of that bacon to see if it’s fresh?’ said Abina. ‘Wouldn’t it be terrible altogether if the whole village were to die of poisoning?’ Without waiting for an answer, she went to the table and helped herself to a huge chunk of bacon and two thick slices of bread.

I was tempted to get food for myself, but Mammy’d warned us that family should eat last – in case there wasn’t enough. This seemed unlikely though, as I’d never before seen such a big and fine spread – not even on Christmas Day.

My brother Tom slipped his hand into mine. ‘Sally, I thought this party was for you and Bridget,’ he whispered. ‘But now Abina says it’s a wake and I know wakes are only for dead people, so does that mean you two are going to die like Grandad did? I don’t want you to die.’

‘Oh, Bridget and I are hardy out,’ I said squeezing his warm, little hand. ‘We won’t die for years and years.’

‘So why did Abina say it’s a wake?’

‘This isn’t like the wake we had for Grandad,’ I said. ‘This is different. This is an American Wake.’

‘What does that mean?’ He crumpled up his little face as he tried to work it out.

‘Well, Bridget and I aren’t going to die,’ I said. ‘But tomorrow we are going very far away. We’re having this wake so people can say goodbye to us, that’s all.’

‘Why do you have to go so far away? I like playing with you.’

‘You’ll still have Aggie and Joe.’

‘They won’t play with me. They say I’m only a baby.’

I knew he was right. Aggie and Joe lived in their own little world, with no room for Tom or anyone else. So instead of answering, I gave Tom a big hug. When he was born, Aggie and Joe were two wild young things, and while Mammy ran around after them, I spent many hours rocking my newest brother, and singing to him. I loved all my siblings, but Tom was the baby and my special pet.

‘I like when you read me the book about beautiful Princess Tiana,’ he said. ‘I like it when you cuddle me at night and tell me I’m your best boy. Why can’t you and Bridget stay here with me and Mammy and Daddy and Aggie and Joe and Granny?’

‘Oh, Tom, Bridget and I have to go. There’s no jobs here, and Daddy’s little farm doesn’t make enough money to pay the rent and feed us all. There’s plenty of work in America. There’s all kinds of opportunities for girls like us.’

‘Are you sad?’ he asked. I didn’t I know how to answer. I was sad about leaving the people I loved. And I was scared – but also very, very excited for our big adventure.

‘Will you ever come back?’ There was a shake in his voice. Most people who went to America never returned. The few who did waited years and years, and seemed so changed no one even knew them anymore. But how could I break my brother’s heart by telling him this sad truth?

‘Of course we’ll come back,’ I said, smiling at him. ‘And we’ll bring you a big trunk full of toys and sweet cakes and velvet britches.’

‘Eww. I won’t wear velvet britches. They’ll all laugh at me.’

‘No velvet britches then. Just toys and books and cakes and so many sweets it’ll take you a hundred years to eat them all.’

Now Abina came over, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘I had a man courting me once long ago – oh, he was a handsome one, he was. He went to America and said he’d get a fine place for us to live – but he never did send for me.’

‘I wouldn’t blame him,’ muttered Bridget, and I tried not to laugh as I looked at Abina’s tangled grey hair and filthy clothes.

‘Bridget Bernadette!’ said Mammy (who always used her full name when she was cross). ‘If you can’t say something kind, then don’t say anything at all.’

‘Yes, Mammy,’ said Bridget, and I could see she really was sorry. She took Abina’s skinny arm and brought her to a stool by the fire, and spent half an hour bringing her plate after plate of food, and listening to boring stories about long ago.

Bridget is nearly a year older than me, but Daddy says she hasn’t the sense she was born with. She’s got the kindest heart in the world, but you wouldn’t always see that at first. I hoped her big mouth wasn’t going to get us into trouble in New York.

*   *   *

Soon our little house was full of people. Some brought food and some brought cans of milk and some pressed coins into my hand or Bridget’s, money to help us get settled in our new lives. A few, like Abina, brought nothing, but ate as if they hadn’t seen food for months – and Mammy welcomed them all, never judging, and trying to give everyone a chance. I hoped Bridget and I would meet people like Mammy in New York.

Granny, who couldn’t walk any more, sat up in her bed in the corner of the room. She loved company, and chatted with anyone who came near. I sat with her for a little while, and she held my hand in her warm bony one. Granny always petted us children, and never got cross with us the way Mammy and Daddy sometimes did. I tried not to think about how very old she was, and how I might not see her again after tomorrow.

*   *   *

Some of the neighbours brought fiddles and whistles, and a man from the other side of the village stood up and sang. Granny clapped her hands in time to the music. Daddy and Bridget somehow found a space to dance their favourite jig, while everyone around them clapped and stamped their feet and laughed and sang, and for a while the house was full of joy.

Then Bridget tried to do a high kick, and when she came down her foot went from under her, and she fell to the ground with her skirts up around her knees. The music stopped and everyone roared with laughter, but I knew trouble wasn’t far away. Bridget hates when people laugh at her. She scrambled to her feet, with wild hair and a cross, red face.

‘What are ye laughing at?’ she cried. ‘Step forward anyone who’d like to tell me what you’re laughing at.’

Her eyes were flashing and even the big grown-up men put their heads down and looked at their feet. A few brave children giggled, but their mothers made them stop.

‘Well?’ said Bridget. ‘I could have broken my neck, and all ye can do is laugh like jackasses.’

Daddy put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Come, Bridget,’ he said. ‘Granny wants to talk to you.’

And because Bridget loves Granny so much, she calmed down, and let herself be moved away from the centre of the floor.

‘Play some more,’ said Mammy to the musicians, so they played another merry tune, and the party was saved. A little later, a man sang a sad song about families being parted, and people told him to hush, and I saw Mammy go pale and slip out the door.

By the time I found her, she was a little way up the road, sitting on a wall and crying quietly. I sat up beside her and put my arm around her, rubbing circles on her back, the way she’d done to me a hundred times.

‘Oh, Sally,’ she cried. ‘I’m glad you girls will have a great new life in America, but what will I do without you at all?’

‘You’ll have Daddy, and Aggie and Joe and Tom and Granny, and Auntie Sarah and all your friends – and maybe one day Bridget and I will ...’

‘Hush now, Sal,’ she said, putting one finger over my lips. ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Just sit here a while and keep me company, and in a minute we’ll go back inside and join the party.’

‘I’ll write to you, Mammy,’ I said. ‘You know Bridget – she’ll have great intentions of writing, but will probably never get around to it. I won’t be like that though. I promise. I’ll write enough for both of us.’

‘Truly?’

‘I’ll write so often you’ll be fed up of reading my letters and be wishing for a break.’

‘Well, that will never happen and that’s for sure. I’ll treasure every word you write about your new life, and I’ll write back and tell you how things are going on here, and it won’t feel as if we’re apart at...