I looked up at him in astonishment. I waited for him to explain more. What would Ma say? Why was he letting me go?

I would get no answers. Da turned around and continued his way down to the cottage, leaning on a blackthorn stick, our old sheepdog lumbering behind him. As I watched him go, a thought, fragile and elusive as a tiny bird, began to form. Could it be that fortune had finally smiled on me?

Nora

Nora

I was fit to be tied when I found out what Da had done. I screamed aloud at Ma, tears stinging my eyes.

“But it was my money, Ma. You promised I’d be the one to go.”

Ma looked up at me from where she sat at the kitchen table. Then she looked away, staring out the window. She couldn’t even face me.

“You’re still going,” she said quietly, “’tis only that your sister’s going too.”

“Aye, traveling down in steerage with the rabble. It might suit Delia, but it doesn’t suit me.”

I’d been looking forward to the journey in first class; I’d pictured myself strolling around the deck in the company of all the toffs. I even let myself imagine one of the rich young fellers would take a notion for me. And now Ma, by not standing up to Da, had ruined all of it. Who was I going to meet down in steerage? Second sons of farmers forced out because they wouldn’t inherit the farm; scrawny shop boys who had a bob on themselves because their boots weren’t caked in mud like the farm boys; chancers of every kind. I could stay home and meet the likes of them!

While the shame of having to travel in steerage fueled my temper, I realized there was something more to it. Da had proved, once and for all, that Delia was his favorite daughter. I’d always suspected it, but now I knew for sure; I meant little to him. I used to put my feelings down to jealousy of Delia, but I realized now it was not jealousy, but hurt. I’d wanted Da to love me. I suppose you always yearn for what you know you can never have.

After a while, my fury quieted down. “But why, Ma? Why did you let him do it? You never listened to him before.”