What the Wind Knows

In 1976, Annie asks her grandfather to tell her about his mother. Annie misses her own mother; she cries when Grandfather says he doesn’t miss his mother because she is always with him. They listen to the wind together. The wind knows everything because it is one of the elements of the Earth that have borne witness to every person’s story.

Eoin Gallagher was born in County Leitrim, Ireland, in 1915. His parents died a few months later in the Easter Uprising of 1916. Annie also lost her parents at a young age, and Eoin took over raising her. Annie has a hard time expressing herself, so Eoin encourages her to write her feelings down.

In 2001, Annie visits Eoin in his Brooklyn home. Eoin shows her a coat button that used to belong to Seán Mac Diarmada, a martyr of the Easter Uprising. Annie is working on a novel about Irish history, but the years after the Easter Uprising are chaotic and full of blame, so she’s hit a roadblock in her writing. Eoin left Ireland during that time, but still misses it. He encourages Annie to write a love story to not forget the real people who lived the history she places such importance in.