The distractions grew even greater after the local paper printed an article about me. Local Girl Rises from the Dead, the headline said. At first, I was embarrassed, but the more attention the article brought, the more I began to enjoy it. Reporters from other newspapers, even one from Dublin, showed up at the door, dying to interview me and take my photograph. For a while the old Nora crept back into me, and I posed and smiled and exaggerated all the details of my story, making myself out to be a selfless heroine. I said I’d tried to help passengers at every turn.

Da kept out of the way, but Ma was delighted with the attention, posing for photographs and telling the reporters all about the shock she’d had when she found out I was dead, and the even bigger shock when she was told I was alive.

“Sure it put me heart crosswise in my chest,” she said. “Make sure you write that down, now.”

I watched her with curiosity. I’d not realized until now how much Ma and the old Nora were two of a kind.

When all the fuss died down, and me and Ma were left facing each other, she finally started the inquisition. “What happened to ye after ye were rescued? Where were ye at all? Where were ye living all this time? Who looked after ye? Where did ye get the money to live? And who gave you that necklace you’ve been wearing since you came home?” And, finally, the question I wanted to avoid most of all: “Why did ye not go and find Aidan O’Hanlon?”

I started with the hospital. That was easy enough to explain. I said I didn’t know how I got there—crew from the rescue ship must have brought me there. I explained I woke up with no memory of who I was.

Ma pursed her lips at that. “I never heard tell of the likes of that,” she said. “If it was another girl that was in it, I’d have said she didn’t want her ma and da to know she was alive. Maybe she’d have wanted to pass herself off as somebody else altogether.”

“How can you say that, Ma?” I said, although I knew that she was partly right, I had pretended my memory hadn’t come back because I wanted to stay with Mrs. Shaw. I hoped the guilt didn’t show on my face.

I could have made up some wild story about where I was living, but Ma would never have believed it, so I’d no choice but to tell her about Mrs. Shaw. As I feared, Ma pounced on Mrs. Shaw like a cat on a mouse.