She went quiet but continued stroking my hair. I had a feeling of contentment I’d never known before—certainly not with my ma. I’d always thought my mother loved me, but I realized now that for all her sweet talk and compliments, what she was really after was control. Her own dreams had never come true, and she was hell-bent on realizing them through me. Real love, I knew now, was when somebody cares about you while expecting nothing back from you. What I felt now from Mrs. Shaw was real love. I looked up at her and smiled. How I wished this woman had been my mother. How different my life might have been and, more to the point, how different a girl I might have turned out to be.

“Ben told me you remembered your name.”

“I have. I was as shocked as anybody when it came out of my mouth.”

“Nora Sweeney. It’s a lovely name. It suits you.”

I smiled. But I knew then she deserved to know the rest of it. “I’ve been keeping some of it back, Mrs. Shaw. And I’m sorry. I was afraid you’d make me go back home if you knew and, well, I didn’t want to go.”

She said nothing as I told her the details of my story—how I was born on a farm in Kilcross, Donegal; how I had a sister named Delia; how I was supposed to go to work for a man named Aidan O’Hanlon; how my ma had told me to try to get him to marry me. Mrs. Shaw’s eyebrows went up at this last bit, but she passed no remark on it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I said, my voice trailing off to a whisper.

She patted my hand and got up from the bed. “Don’t be sorry, Nora. You were right to wait until you felt ready to tell me. You just rest now, and we’ll talk about what we should do next when you are feeling stronger.”

A few days later, Mrs. Shaw came into the kitchen, all business, and sat down. Beatrice was humming away at the sink, and Teresa was away on an errand.

“I’ve been thinking, Nora,” Mrs. Shaw began, “the first thing we should do is contact your parents to let them know you are alive. They deserve to know the truth.”

I nodded. I knew she was right.

“I’ve looked up the list of the Titanic survivors I saved from the newspaper. There was a Delia Sweeney from Donegal listed.”

I put my hand to my mouth. “Thank God,” I whispered.

“We must find her. Do you have any idea where she would be?”