The Portrait Behind the Counter

A few days after arriving home from California, we found ourselves driving across the country to County Clare. Neither of us expected what would happen when we stopped for coffee in a small village in County Tipperary.

We were driving from Carrickshock in County Kilkenny to Ennis in County Clare to meet Sinéad’s sister and her husband.

As we approached Bansha, we needed a break.

Sinéad was watching for somewhere to stop.

“Look, there it is,” she said, pointing to a café on the left. “The Fig Tree.”

I pulled in and found a parking space near the door.

A few women were leaving as we walked in. Others came in behind us. It was clearly popular with the locals.

The café had a wide menu—breakfast, lunch, tea and every kind of coffee, along with sweet cakes and a variety of pastries.

The woman behind the counter greeted us with a warm smile. She took our order.

Behind her hung a large portrait of a young woman.

Sinéad looked from the portrait to the woman behind the counter.

“Is that you?” she asked.

The woman smiled.

“No,” she said. “It’s my daughter.”

“She’s beautiful,” we said.

Her smile faded.

“She died two years ago.”

Nobody spoke.

Her eyes glistened, but she held herself together.

“Cancer,” she said quietly at last.

“Ovarian.”

She told us her daughter was only twenty-seven.

During her final days in hospice, she spoke about a dream she had carried for years.

She wanted to open a coffee shop.

Her mother tried to reassure her.

“We’ll do it together when you’re better.”

But her daughter was direct.

“I know I’m dying,” she said. “You must do it for me.”

“You already have everything you need,” she told her mother. “You’re a wonderful cook and baker. People will come.”

After her daughter died, Usha kept her promise.

She opened The Fig Tree in 2024.

Usha told us that she had left Mauritius after her marriage ended. Her children remained there with their father while she began a new life in Ireland.

Later, her daughter decided she wanted to join her.

Her father did not want her to leave.

But she had made her decision.

She told him she was going, and nothing he did would stop her.

She came to Ireland to live with her mother.

Neither mother nor daughter knew then what lay ahead.

Before long, she was diagnosed with cancer.

Mother and daughter spent the final months together.

Every so often during her story, Usha paused.

We listened.

When she finished, we offered our condolences.

For a while, none of us spoke.

Then we paid, shook her hand, wished her well and walked back to the car.

As we drove towards Ennis, Sinéad and I thought of our own niece, who died from cervical cancer. She left behind her husband, a young daughter and two grieving families.

We were on our way to meet her parents.

We never mentioned what had happened in Bansha.

We will not forget the portrait behind the counter at The Fig Tree.

Or Usha standing beneath it, quietly keeping her daughter’s dream alive.