My Mother Hoped for the Best My mother would pause in her sweeping and lean on the brush to listen when Bridie Gallagher’s voice trilled from the wireless, her sentimental lilt filling the kitchen with Moonlight in Mayo. My mother sang along with the same musing air I noticed when, twice a year, the good tea set was taken from the dresser, bone china delft, white, rimmed with red roses to be washed in suds: thirty pieces all intact, something...
