“What kind of a woman would take in a total stranger? Nobody takes in a strange girl for nothing. What kind of things did you have to do in exchange? Was it one of her customers gave you that locket?”

I knew what Ma was getting at and my anger flared.

“She wasn’t running a brothel; she was a decent woman, and she expected nothing from me. And for your information, it was her gave me this locket as a keepsake.”

“She must have been a spoiled one then, with a rich husband and too much time on her hands. Ye must have been amusement for her.”

“You have her all wrong, Ma!” I shouted. “She was like a mother to me!”

The words were out before I could stop them. I braced myself, waiting for Ma’s anger to explode. But instead of the tirade I expected, her face turned pale.

“I never thought my daughter would disown me,” she said as she walked away with her back to me.

I could have run after her and said I didn’t mean it the way she took it. But, again, there was some truth to her words. I had wished that Mrs. Shaw was my mother. I left the cottage without speaking to her and climbed up the hill to the circle of white stones. Delia’s stones, I had taken to calling them. I began to understand why Delia had spent so much time up there. She’d wanted to escape Ma’s constant harping, and now I wanted to escape from her too.

A soft rain began to fall as I sat looking out at the misty sea. I wanted to weep, but no tears would come. Since I came home, I’d been wrung dry as a dish towel. All the life seemed to have gone out of me. I began to wonder had I made a mistake by coming back.

In the days that followed, Ma hardly spoke to me. Instead, I was met with heavy sighs and martyred looks. Da took the chance to stay out of the house as long as possible, saying he had to make the most of the light to get jobs done before spring. Likewise, I spent as much time as I could up in my room. The walls started to close in on me, almost suffocating me. I felt like a prisoner as I looked out the tiny window over the green fields and hills.

I knew things couldn’t go on the way they were. Either Ma or I would have to give in—and I knew rightly it wouldn’t be Ma. One morning I went down to the kitchen and stood in front of her.

“I’m sorry, Ma, for what I said. Mrs. Shaw was a kind woman, but no one would ever take your place in my heart.”