Siobhan plodded barefoot across the dark cabin’s earthen floor.

Last night’s embers still blushed amid the stove ash. Siobhan placed dried hay atop the amber mounds and blew until the bundle ignited. Liam would expect breakfast when he returned.

Siobhan sighed as she mixed the biscuits. This isn’t what she envisioned when Liam implored her to America: a sod-walled, grease paper-windowed, one-room shanty plopped on a frayed Nebraska plain.

She hurried outside to watch for him. The night sky was dissolving into a blotted, bruise-like dawn but one solitary, tenacious star still lingered, burning bright.

Siobhan made a wish.

(Image by Carol Highsmith.)