I was stirring a pot of collards when I heard his key in the lock. 

“Come on back in the kitchen, Cristophe,” I called. “I got some talk for you.”

He slouched into the room with his round-shouldered stride, a dirty muskmelon tucked beneath his arm. I didn't even have to ask. It had been hastily plucked from his stepfather’s garden, big but green around the edges. He’d been pulling up things before they were ready ever since he was a little boy.

Colm returns with the next round of pints from the bar and takes his seat on the wooden bench beside you, where you sit watching the hurling game on television.  It's Galway playing the team from Tipp. Everyone's rooting for Galway, because that's where you are.

Colm is a good tour guide and he has been filling you in on the last 2,000 years of Irish athletic history.  "This is the fastest game in the world after ice hockey.  Mad dangerous too.  Someone's always getting clobbered."

One afternoon not long after, she hears music rising from the room and enters it expecting to see one of her daughters at the piano. (Any excuse to avoid their other studies.) Can’t believe what she sees. What she hears. Before the moment can overwhelm her he hits another chord, tinkles out another melody. Hands flashing everywhere.