1923
Diary 12th November.
We were hardly out of the beds this morning when Mrs O'Donovan called, sand all over her boots. She'd come the back way up the strand like Norah used to when sneaking down to us. Wariness had her hunched, her black shawl was drawn in around her. The look on her face said she'd rather be anywhere else in the world than at our back door.
"How is she?" the old woman asked, not saying her daughter's name, and I invited her in to see for herself. Both of us were full of the memory of the last time we faced each other like this, when the boot was on the other foot. I was determined to treat her better than she had treated me and felt a need to warn her before she opened the kitchen door. "You'll find her quiet in herself."
"She was always a quiet girl."
"Not like t
