‘You’re being crazy,’ Brynn said when I told her my worries as we walked the deck one windy morning, the day before the talent show and three days before we were due to dock in San Francisco. ‘You need to stop thinking those thoughts. Do you know how foolish they are?’

We stood looking out to the grey ocean, the waves white at the tips as they crashed into the hull of the ship, tiny drops of spray landing on the skin of my face, the salt water making it feel stretched and tight as it dried in the wind. Brynn turned to face me, pulling a stiff clump of hair from my mouth. The wind in my eyes meant she couldn’t tell I was crying.

Brynn decided that I needed to be kept busy, and since she couldn’t get me to perform in the talent show she insisted that I help with the set design and decoration. The committee of women who had organised the thing were like every committee I came across later in life. People inflated with a sense of self-importance; nitpicking and power trips over things as inconsequential as chair configuration and bunting colours. I kept my mouth shut and worked diligently, twirling and sticky-taping lengths of streamers, typing programs to mimeograph and painting backdrops on bedsheets stretched and tacked into place. There were more artistic girls than me on board, but I could do a swathe of sky and lose myself in the purpose of filling every white space with blue.

The day of the show I woke up early to help hang the backdrops. The show was to be held in the ballroom and sailors were in there helping to move furniture and set out chairs. Up on the stage talking to the committee were the ship’s captain and Jim. I carried a great long roll of painted bedsheet to the back of the stage, a box of tacks in the pocket of my skirt.

Jim glanced over at me and I smiled. I’d thought often of how rude I’d been to him and had been hoping for the chance to say sorry. Perhaps this would be it.

But he just blinked and looked away.

I hurried to tack the sheets into place and did a shoddy job, hardly able to see for the haze of tears in front of my eyes. I didn’t want to even see this show. Why was I even there? Brynn was wrong to think it would keep my mind off things. It just made me more aware of what I’d lost.