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arranged that Jack would call Peter when he came down from his cottage early in the morning, and then, when the two of them had the most of the cows milked that Peter would come in to call Nora and she would get the breakfast for the three of them while Jack and Peter finished off the milking. Nora felt strange that they were making all these arrangements as if Mom were dead as well, but when she voiced her thoughts Peter said bitterly, “She might as well be.”
    “Don’t be too hard on her,” Jack said. “She’s had a mighty shock but there’s too much fire in her to stay down long; she’ll rise again.” Nora hoped that he was right, but then Jack was usually right, so maybe things would get better.
    Before they left for school they tidied up the kitchen.
    “Will I take up a cup of tea to Mom before we go?” Nora asked Peter.
    “Suit yourself, but hurry on or we’ll be late,” he told her.
    Nora quickly buttered a cut of bread and poured what was left in the teapot into a cup and, balancing a plate on top of it, ran upstairs.
    Her mother was lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, her black hair in lank strands on the pillow. The bones stuck out in her long face and she had black patches under her eyes. Nora had heard her mother described as “thebest-looking woman in the parish”. It frightened her now that she was so changed. A light seemed to have gone out inside in her and she looked like a corpse. It would be terrible if she died too.
    “Mom, here’s a cup of tea for you,” she said quietly. “Peter and I are going to school.”
    “Oh,” her mother said blankly.
    “We are, Mom. Do you remember we told you last night?” Nora said.
    “I forgot,” her mother said vaguely.
    “The kitchen is tidy and Jack is out in the yard if you want anything,” Nora told her.
    “Oh, is he …?” her mother said as if she had forgotten Jack.
    It was almost as if they had changed places. Maybe Nana was right and it would be better for Mom if there were things that she had to do.
    As they put on their coats it felt odd that Mom was not there checking that they were well wrapped up and warm before leaving the house. Nora was glad to be back in the old familiar school boots. As she looked down on their leather toe caps, she stamped on the floor to warm her toes and the iron studs gave a metallic clank.
    “It’s very cold this morning,” Peter told her. “We were nearly frozen out in the stalls doing the cows. Be sure that you have plenty of clothes on, Norry, because the school will be freezing.”
    Nora thought that Peter was a bit more like his old self this morning, and it made her feel better.
    As they walked out through the yard Jack put his head out of Paddy’s stable. “Don’t worry about your mother now. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
    “How’s Paddy this morning?” Nora asked.
    “Almost as good as new,” Jack told her.
    Paddy had been cut and bruised in the fall and Jack had been doctoring him with his own remedies. The accident had not been Paddy’s fault, but somehow seeing him brought it all back, so she had not called to see him very often.
    They walked along quickly in order to keep warm. The high ditches at each side of the boreen were draped with faded brown ferns and tiered moist moss. It was a short, steep boreen that led up to the road and Jack’s cottage was just beside their farm gate.
    “Hello, Toby.” Nora leant over the stone wall that divided their boreen from the cottage yard and a small brown terrier put his front paws on his side of the wall and shook his tail in welcome. They were old friends, but if a stranger called when Jack was out Toby attacked with great ferocity. In the yard behind him hens and ducks wandered around scratching and picking. They could see Jack’s cat sitting on the back window of the cottage washing her face and tidying herself up for the day.
    “I love Jack’s cottage,” Nora said.
    “Oh, every time we pass Jack’s cottage you say that!”