In returning home, what was she doing but revisiting herself as she used to be? Before… before everything changed and so had she. Nae. She would never return to the way she was. How could she? She was no longer a daughter. How could one be, without parents? Nor did she have any siblings — none that wanted to acknowledge her, or even could. She was not a wife or mother either. Her heart shrank painfully. She was defined by loss: an orphan, a widow, a grieving mother.

Leaning closer, she examined her face in detail, plucked her lip to check for blood stains, stared hard until the blue-green of her eyes became apparent. Beatrix had always said how much she resembled her mor. Unable to see it when she was younger, now, apart from her bronze hair, she had to admit she did look like her mother. This is what age, loss and guilt do to a child: turn them into younger versions of their unhappy parents.

The chatter of her friends rose and fell in the background and she released a deep breath and stared at the woman in the glass once more before her eyes studied the room around her, reversed and subdued into a palette of greys and browns. It was important to focus on the life that had blossomed within these walls, not the sorrow. That wasn’t the way of things here. Everyone she knew had lost someone to the sea — husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers, sons. Nettie had lost a beloved brother; Beatrix so many: sons, brothers, a father. Nicolas had never met her father, the North Sea claiming him before she was born. Some had given even more. It was an expectation that when you took from the sea, there were dues to be paid. Some paid more than others, but somehow, between them, the balance was maintained. You buried your loved ones if you could, mourned for a period, and life went on. To talk about them, dwell upon their absence, wasn’t fair; it only reminded everyone what they’d lost. Sorcha wouldn’t do that. Not any more. The period for grieving had passed.