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to hear it again. The second time through, Shan softly chuckled. By the end of the third, he laughed out loud, something he hadn’t done since his parents had passed.
    “Come back anytime,” Mr. Maguire had said, to which his wife winked in agreement. And so Shan began his regular visits after school, losing himself in every record the shopkeeper owned. With little to offer in return, Shan would sometimes help with dusting the shelves or counting inventory or unloading boxes—becoming easily distracted when those boxes included new books. Yet as long as he used care and scrubbed his hands clean, Mrs. Maguire allowed him to peruse the pages. On occasion Mr. Maguire would even share a handful of toffees while he and Shan listened to records, ranking their favorites. Certainly, Shan enjoyed the likes of Marion Harris’s “I Ain’t Got Nobody” and John McCormack’s “It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary.” But not half as much as Billy Murray’s “I’m the Guy” and “Under the Anheuser Bush.”
    Shan wound up visiting so many times he could recite the recordings on his own, entertaining the Maguires—often until their cheeks were red and sore from laughter—and sometimes the customers too. Eventually, a friend of Mr. Maguire suggested the act was quite fitting for a local pub. Uncle Will, upon hearing the news, called the idea bloody rubbish—until learning there would be pay.
    A fortunate thing for them both. As of today, how else would they live?
    The reality of this would press down on Shan later, but not now.
    “This Steve Porter fellow, is he a comedian too?” he asked.
    Mr. Maguire nodded. “A real amusing one, at that. I’m not sure he’s a vaudevillian, like your Billy Murray. But he’s also a Yank, and making quite a name for himself, I hear.”
    “I can hardly wait to hear it.” The fact that the record had never been played made it all the more enticing.
    “Sir? Pardon me.” A woman at the trinket case raised her gloved hand. “I wish to purchase this claddagh pin, if you please.”
    “’Tis a grand choice.” Mr. Maguire turned to Shan. “Back in a bit.”
    While waiting, Shan ran his fingers over the record label. He imagined what it would be like to watch the performers in person. The velvet curtains and brightly lit stages. The orchestra and balconies and ushers. Each of their theaters was surely elaborate, as was everything in America.
    The vision of the scene played through Shan’s mind, and from it came a thought. A solution to all their troubles. An idea that should have come to him long ago.
    Uncle Will would take some convincing, of course, but all the evidence needed to make a strong case was literally in Shan’s hands.

5
    “W here the hell’ve ye been?” Uncle Will yelled from the bed.
    Shan had just walked through the door, expecting the room to be vacant, and the shock loosened his grip. Too late, he felt the record slip from inside his coat. He scrambled to save it, but Mr. Maguire’s brand-new purchase toppled to the rough wooden floor. “Ah, Jaysus, no!”
    He dropped to his knees. Hands damp from the rain, he used his fingertips to slide the disc from its flimsy casing. Distantly he heard his uncle scolding him for the use of foul language. But Shan continued to examine the record as best he could. The table lamp and afternoon grayness seeping through the window provided the only light.
    Not shattered. Not cracked. No scratches he could see.
    “You’ll answer me now, boy, if you know what’s good for ye.”
    Shan’s awareness returned. “I-I’m sorry, Uncle Will.” He returned the record to its cover. “I didn’t expect you back from the pub this early.”
    “Plainly so. Or you’d have gone straight home as I told—” Uncle Will broke off into raspy coughs. He muffled them with a yellowish handkerchief that might have been white when originally sewn.
    Shan rose to explain himself, but was detoured by the clacking of shoes. Doc O’Halloran