I know I am running a little late, driving along in the pouring rain to collect my daughter Caoimhe from school. The potential client who I had lunched with in a Cashel pub for over three interminable hours just droned on and on about his damned family.

It was all, ‘the wife does this’ and ‘then the wife does the other thing, do’yer believe that?’, which made the lunch even more tortuous than business lunches usually are.

I’m a computer engineer, I like fiddling with hardware and software, and love being left alone to get on with installations, upgrading or repairing, but I do also have to drum up sales in the form of new custom, too, part of being a one-man band of a huge international company tucked away in a quiet out of the way outpost.

Every great job has its downsides.

Anyway, discussions about other families just get to me more than they really should.

Yeah, thanks Mac, when the client casually asks me if I believe it, when he really doesn’t care if I believe it or not, I do believe it.

Yeah, been there, done that once but not recently and never again, probably.

There are some fading memories that never quite fade out to nothing, like those old computer monitors used to. I know it’s off and will never be switched on again but that little glow lingers on in perpetual torment.

So, yeah, sometimes I am only hanging on in the present with more than a foot and half a leg into the past. It’s not that the past was so good for very long but the future just takes me where I really would have no wish to go at all if it wasn’t for Caoimhe being my whole world now.

So, you’re wondering, just who is the grumpy dude you’re reading the sorry thoughts and miscellaneous musings of?

Yeah me.

I’m Richard (never Dick or Rick or Rich) Kloss and I am also running late because of the Irish weather as well as the overlong lunch.

Heavy was the rain until just a minute ago, and the spray from the road thrown up by all the Friday trucks, trying to get the shops supplied for the weekend, is absolutely crazy.

I can’t see much of the road in front of me, the rear view is a total white-out blur and I have to go slow for safety. Better that Caoimhe wait a few minutes in the sheltered entrance outside the school than forever wait for some loved one who will never come.

Yeah, I know how that feels too.

At the moment I am driving Northwards between Cashel and Thurles on the Slievenamon Road, otherwise known as the N62, which is on the south side of Thurles, County Tipperary.

OK, I know what you’re thinking, ‘Richard Kloss’ doesn’t sound very Irish, in fact not Irish at all, not even an Anglo surname that is still common in the area. So, you might ask, what am I, an American, a single, well-preserved 39 years of age computer engineer from Santa Monica, in Sunny California, doing here in the rain in the rural centre of Ireland?

Well, I’m of Irish extraction mixed with German (one side of my family moved to the States from Ireland in 1846 and the other side from the Palatine region of Bavaria in 1848, according to the immigration records, then moved across country by the 1920s to become a middle class white family in Pico District, where my great-grandpa started working in the aircraft building industry).

As far as I know I’m the only one of my family who has returned to Ireland to live permanently. I and we like it here, ‘we’ being my daughter and I.

It’s all Caoimhe has known anyway, other than the odd Thanksgiving trip ‘home’, and even ‘home’ has changed in her lifetime. My parents moved to Culver City while I was in college for a while and finally retired to Florida five years ago, so Ireland, Thurles in particular, is definitely home for my little family of two.

I moved to Cork from California about twelve years ago as a post-grad at University College Cork doing my Masters Degree in Computer Science. I met an adorable local girl, redhead Ella Bernadette Walsh, we married, we had a kid, only my wife El died while giving birth and my baby and I have stayed on in the cottage that we bought in Thurles. When I say in, I mean a couple of kilometres south of the town centre, on the very road we are travelling on, as it happens.

I’m playing Leonard Cohen on Bluetooth, that’s the kinda mood I’m usually in when I’m on my own, so bite me, why don’t ya?

When I pick Caoimhe up from school in a few minutes then of course I’ll be willingly forced to play song after song of Olivia Rodrigo, a singer that she is so into right now. Well, she is 10 going on 20, my girl.

The windscreen wipers are wiping on max and barely coping with the wet even though I suspect the rain has slowed or even stopped. There is so much spray, though, it’s like driving through a thick cloud. I’m doing barely 60km/hr on the N62, the visibility is that poor. Especially as there’s a big silver truck ahead of me with no wheel flaps, that’s sending up a wall of spray so my view of the road is rivalling one from the Maid of the Mist at Niagra Falls. I can’t see enough of what’s coming towards me from beyond the truck to risk overtaking, so I drop back a few feet to improve my view of the road.

Now my view is a little bit clearer and I see the big truck go through a huge puddle spreading halfway across our side of the road, sending a huge tsunami wave right across the sidewalk and the high hedgerow behind.

I slow down as I know there will be a huge back wash in whatever casual water lies on the road that could drag me off the road.

And now I see there in the middle of the sidewalk, after the wave hits the ground, stands a person absolutely drenched from top to toe.

"Damn!" I exclaim and automatically press harder on the brakes.

Well, what would you do? Drive by and toot? No of course not, we’re all perfect gentlemen at heart, aren’t we?

It was the truck driver’s fault, maybe he was deliberate splashing or simply couldn’t see the person in the rain and drove by unaware of what they’ve done? It must be another 5 or 6km to Thurles. A long way to walk when you’ve stepped out of a dirty cold shower in the clothes you’re dressed in. Can’t just abandon them, someone has to stop, I mean we regular motorists are the modern-day knights of the road, yeah?

So I check the mirror. I can’t see anything at all in the misty cloud coming up behind me, yup, cautious and careful’s my middle name when I’m driving in Ireland, even after 12 years it still feels like I’m driving on the wrong side of the road.

Yeah, I know, the locals would call me an eejit, but here I am stopping for someone on a lonely road on a miserable day.

Not all hitchikers are Texas chain saw handlers, I tell myself.

Well, I have picked up the odd one here, hitchhikers, not chainsawmen, much more readily than I ever would Stateside and have never met a murderer yet.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

As for safety in stopping, I’ve got my fogs on front and rear, so I should be seen even if I stop for a minute or so on what passes as a fast road in Ireland.

I indicate left and switch it to hazards, and slow to a stop next to who I can now see is a woman, well, a girl really, very slim build, 5 foot 5 or 5 foot 6 maybe, I guess, probably a student who can’t afford to use the bus up from the Horse & Jockey. She’s just lowering one hand after no doubt delivering a suitable sign language message to the driver. It could have been a middle finger but I’ve noticed that the two-finger reverse ‘Victory’ sign seems to find most favour around these parts.

The girl is wearing running gear, a T and shorts, trainers without socks and carrying a large purse over her shoulder, sorry a handbag — El was always correcting me on that. Her dark hair is plastered flat against her head. Everything she has is streaming water.

I step out of the car without thinking and step straight into the feckin’ puddle up right up over my ankles, the very puddle I knew was there but had forgotten already.

And these are my best court shoes that I only ever wear to meet clients or potential clients. Usually, like the soaked girl here, I favour trainers for everyday wear. Hey look, I do jog … not every day, no, but two of three times a week before work, to be honest once or twice some weeks.

"Hey, there," I call across the roof of the car. "Do you need a lift, ma’am? I’m heading towards Thurles?"

The woman is wet through and dripping, no, make that streaming. But she smiles, quite sweetly, considering her circumstances, saying, "No thanks soir, I’s fine."

Hey, I’m too much of a gentleman to simply leave her, even on her say-so. The Irish are just so damn polite, that’s why I love ’em so much. She is absolutely soaked through and that puddle weren’t no Lemon Evian. I guess she’s probably afraid to step into a stranger’s car. OK, I get that.

"Look ma’am, at least get in and out of the rain and warm up for a few minutes. You just get your phone out, dial 112 and get ready to send if I start any funny business. I assure you I have no such intention. I have clean towels in the trunk; I’ve a daughter of 10 who never misses a puddle, ever, what can I say?"

"Ah," she says, looking at me with her head at an oblique angle, "you’re a visitor here, calling this drizzle ‘rain’ when all it is is a soft day with a wee bit o’ spit. So, ’tis a daughter that you have now, is it?"

I notice that she has a soft, rural musical voice, pleasant to the ear, like her native tongue was Gaeilge and English words were naturally turned into a melody of her own making.

"Yeah, and I need to pick her up from school and, well now," I say as I look at my watch. "I’m running a little bit late, so she’ll be looking at biting off my head, rather like you were wishing on that trucker that drenched you."

"Well, I was actually wishing his innards would be biting his arse so I did, because I draw the line at biting off heads just for a simple soaking." She smiles very faintly, but standing there with her head held high and proud, I thought she looked damned cute, far too young for an ‘ould fella’ like me, though, as Caoimhe would put it, but cute all the same.

"But whatever, although I am in a hurry, I saw you get soaked and I didn’t want to abandon you, it’s miles to the next town, and I’d feel guilty all day and guilty every day I pass this spot in the rain. And that means I’ll feel guilty pretty well forever."

"Ha!" she laughs. "You don’t seem so bad a person, for a fella."

She sounds bitter at the end there and I wonder what her last fella did to upset her. She continues.

"Then I’ll come with you in your … carriage."

"It’s an SUV, electric," I say, quite proud of the car. It was too bloody expensive in the first place, but it is economical to run, easy to drive, and I felt good that I was doing some small thing for the planet. I had to do something to offset my total love of juicy rare steaks.

"I know no-one at all where I’m going but I, well, I’m more comfortable talking to girls than fellas … I’m in no hurry to get there so I’d like to meet her, it’ll be be nice to talk to your daughter and maybe her mother too."

"Unfortunately Caoimhe’s mother is … well, she’s no longer with us."

"Sorry to hear that, was her departure recent?"

"My wife died while giving birth to Caoimhe," I say for probably the thousandth time. It never got any easier nor did it ever sound fairer than it did before, however many times I say it.

"Caoimhe means ‘noble’, I believe," the girl says as I splash my way around the automobile to open and hold the door for her.

"Okay, get in. Wait! I’ll spread some towels for you to sit on first."

"Is she a princess, your daughter, if you know what I mean?"

"Oh yeah, she’s a diva alright, the original," I say, can’t help smiling when I talk or even think about my daughter, except those times when I wish she wasn’t my daughter, which was becoming increasingly more common as she becomes more independent.

I splash my way back to the trunk, opening it up for some of the neatly folded towels I mentioned to her earlier. They’re handy for packing round computer servers, supermarket shopping, as well as wet girls, and I wash them regularly enough because I like things clean and neat, minimalistic. I hate clutter.

I drop most of the towels on the passenger seat and over the back of the seat, pop a small one under my arm, shake out the biggest one and hold it up ready to drape around her. I can’t help but notice the ‘wet T-shirt effect’ that shows she’s not wearing a bra under her T. She might be slim and boyish in build but those points show she’s all girl. She turns away a quarter turn, inviting me to drape the towel over her shoulders, her long slim fingers lifting her very long singularly plaited black hair out of the way before settling the braid across her front.

"I’d really like to meet your daughter, d’you think she would be amenable to talk to a drowned rat such as I?"

"I’m sure she’d love to meet you, it’s, we’re, well, we’re a little isolated where we live, so other than seeing her school friends during the day, well, I guess I think she misses female company. I know she misses my neighbour terribly since she went away recently. Anyway, I don’t want to take you out of your way via the school, where are you heading, ma’am?"

"McCullogh’s Cottages."

"In the Slievenamon Road?"

"Aye, a wee bit further along this very road, before the golf course, I understand. It used ta be my aunt’s place, Number 1 of two cottages it is, but it’s mine now. It’s been a few months me making up my mind to come or not. I’m the last of my family and ’tis a big thing to uproot yourself, so it is."

"Yeah, I know. The place has been empty for a few months, ma’am, it might not be what you’re used to find inside, you know, a bit damp and all, while the the furnishings are sparse and old. Not sure if she’s left any fuel or even kindling to hand, certainly no food, because the fridge was completely cleaned out. You could have some of our supplies of course to tide you over. How is Katie, has she settled happily in her new home?"

"Oh, she’s fine, complains all the feckin’ time but she’s fair in herself. Do you know my aunt’s place?"

"Yeah, I live next door at Number 2."

"Oh! That’s grand, I don’t have a key and I know from er Aunt Kaetlynn that you do, so you could let me in."

"But how do I know you’re…."

"That Kaetlynn is my aunt and that her place is now my place? Because I can tell you exactly how many teaspoons are in her kitchen drawer, it’s four."

"How?–"

"I’ll tell you over a wee brew o’ tea, I’m sure Caoimhe would like to hear the story. I brought my favourite tea blend in my bag, fortunately in a waterproof tin."

I laugh to myself, what an intriguing girl! I hand her the spare towel, "For your hair and arms," before splashing back through the puddle to the driver’s side. Checking before stepping out, there’s nothing coming up the road.

"Look, there’s spare face masks in the glove compartment," I say as I put on mine which was stored in my door pocket where I dropped it after lunch.

She looks blankly at me, so I open the glovebox with my left hand, careful not to freak her out by brushing her knee or anything, and get a fresh one out of the wrapper.

She looks at mine, turns hers over and puts it on the right way around. I do up my seat belt and she copies me.

I look in the mirror, the road is still empty behind me, I start off and am soon running about 70km/hr with a clear road ahead of us. The rain has stopped and the spray from the oncoming traffic down to virtually nothing.

"Richard," I say, "my name, I’m pleased to meet you."

"Etain," she replies, "my pleasure to meet you … and thank you for being a gentleman."

I glance at her quickly, she does have a nice smile. I wonder if she is a student, wonder what she’s studying and how would she get there and back from McCullogh’s Cottages? We’re pretty isolated there. And where was her luggage, clothes, supplies, even just cleaning supplies, ready for moving into her aunt’s cottage?

We don’t go far before I can start to ask any questions, and then we see the very same silver truck stopped at the side of the road parked at an unsafe angle half up on the grass verge.

I slow down and can clearly see somebody squatting between the truck and the hedgerow, holding up the back of his yellow hi-vis top to prevent soiling it. Clearly he’s been caught short and couldn’t make to the next set of jacks.

"Ha!" I say to my passenger while tooting the driver with a long blast on my horn, "that’s karma for yah!"

She sits there relaxed into the seat and smiling like a slim Buddha, "Oh aye, I feel a whole lot calmer now."