Cahal is a 19-year old boy working for his father’s auto-mechanic shop in Ireland. One day, two foreigners from Spain ask him if he can drive them to take pictures of the “Our Lady of the Wayside” statue in Poulderag. No one usually goes to see the statue anymore, but for fifty euros he agrees to drive them. On the way back from the statue, he sees a little girl run into the road. He’s heard that this child often runs into the road here, but it’s never happened to him before. He hears a thud hit his door, and sees something white lying in the road behind him. He keeps driving.

For a while he doesn’t hear anything about the girl. Then, while he’s eating dinner at a cafe with his girlfriend one evening, they find that the dressmaker — the little girl’s mother — is staring at him. Three days later, Cahal hears that the dressmaker’s daughter is missing. She is then found at the bottom of a fissure, where she’d lain for days. People assume she wandered there herself, and the dressmaker is blamed for this tragedy. Eventually, the dressmaker approaches Cahal. She asks him to come with her, and makes it clear that she knows Cahal hit her daughter, but that she will put no blame on him. He refuses. 

From then on he sees her around, wearing dark clothes in mourning. He knows that someday he will approach her.