A SWEATY FUG enveloped the cabin, and a loud snore came my way when I pulled the earplugs from my ears. I rubbed my neck and slid the window shade all the way up allowing light to flood in, into my little section of the plane at least. Morning had broken without my being aware of it, curled up under the tiny blue blanket which hadn’t quite reached my feet. I’d had almost two hours sleep, not bad for the red eye from Orlando. I’d been lucky – the flight was only 70 per cent full, which meant I’d had an entire row of three seats to myself. But now I was awake, headachy and dry-eyed.

I gazed out the window. No land yet. I had a seat over the wing and the sky below was nothing but white cloud. I tapped the screen on the back of the seat in front of me and brought up the map with the little aeroplane and the arrows – an hour and thirty-five minutes to go.

I tried to remember where I’d put my plastic bag of toiletries and wondered if I could be bothered to go to the bathroom and brush my teeth, when the squeak of a trolley brought a smiling air steward with a beard, a bun and a broad Scottish accent. He handed me a bottle of water and a warm cardboard box. The water went down in one, but I struggled to swallow the gloopy cheese croissant even with the later addition of coffee and orange juice. Still, it took up some time and once I’d finished, there was only an hour and twenty-one minutes to go. So I drank the last of my juice and turned on a film.

I wasn’t yet ready to think about what lay ahead, to reprogramme my brain to my Irish life.

By the time we got to Dublin my head was pounding and there was a red hue around everything I could see. Two hours sleep in twenty-four hours will do that to you. The sky outside was grey and rain blistered down the windows of the plane when we landed. Irish spring weather.

As I trotted down the marathon corridors of Dublin Airport with the rest of the herd, it was hard not to recall my return from the States nearly ten years earlier and how different things had been then. How raw I’d felt after the death of my sister, Fay, who had been killed by my ex-boyfriend. How I’d dreaded facing my parents and their grief. In retrospect, how selfish I’d been.

But then, I’d found a home in Donegal on the Inishowen peninsula, which was where my life was now, a life I’d made for myself. I’d realized in America how much I valued that life, how much an anchor Inishowen was for me. I wouldn’t be leaving again in a hurry.