Michael Dolan was eighteen years old when he got off the bus in Limerick with a small suitcase, a few crumpled banknotes, and so many plans in his head that he felt his body could barely contain them. It was not that he had ever seen the world. The opposite. Because he had not seen it, he could imagine it as large as he liked. His father’s farm lay outside the village, on land that produced potatoes, stones, mud, and complaint. His mother had died when he was thirteen. After that the house had shrunk. Not in square footage. In air. A house without a woman in it is not only quieter. It is also harder in its corners.