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before Steele arrived. It seemed more formal, but the truth was, I felt safer, less exposed, with the solid mahogany between us. Clutching the curved armrests in my white-knuckled grip, I anchored myself to weather whatever he’d throw at me.

    â€œLet’s get started,” he said, flipping his notebook to a fresh page. I felt hunted—no, worse than that. I felt trapped, about to be skinned and dissected.
    Can I do this? Am I really going to talk about that night?
    I’d put so much energy into staunching those memories as they bubbled up these past few weeks. Yet here I was, baring their very arteries to a stranger.
    â€œSo, Miss Ellen,” he said, looking at me as though I were a specimen. His pencil, ready for the first incision. “Tell me about the Empress of Ireland . When did you first meet?”
    He spoke of her as the crew did—as though the ship were a woman and not steel and rivets. I released the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. Though it had some pain of its own, that memory came easy.
    â€œIt was the summer of 1906, the year I turned ten. I spent time with Aunt Geraldine. My mother had been ill—she was dying, actually. And I suppose my parents felt it best that I be spared that goodbye. I was sent from my home in Ireland here to Liverpool, to Strandview Manor, which I hated, and to Aunt Geraldine, whom I liked even less.” I cleared my throat and focused on what I meant to say. “That was when I first saw the Empress . Mr. Gaade, the chief steward, was an old friend of my aunt’s and had invited us to see the ship off on her maiden voyage. Just a short one, across the Irish Sea to Ireland.”
    I was back there, then, looking at the Empress through my ten-year-old eyes. I could almost hear the band playing beneath the bunting, almost feel the long blast of her horn shake my heart as she pulled away. From her red-bottomed hull, up her sleek, black sides, past her white upper decks toher black-rimmed golden funnels, she was a beauty. But I didn’t care about all that, I didn’t want to wave my hankie at a ship bound for Ireland—I wanted to take it. I wanted to go home.
    I paused, but Steele, seemingly comfortable with the uncomfortable silence, waited for me to fill it.
    â€œThat’s the first time I saw her,” I finally added, pulling away from the memory. “I never thought I’d sail, much less serve, aboard her.”
    â€œWhat did you think when you boarded her for the first time as crew?” Steele prompted. He glanced at a side note. “In January 1914.”
    It seemed like such a long time ago. Was it really only five months? “I didn’t know what to think, really. I’d only recently recovered that winter from … an illness. I was tired and overwhelmed.”
    He jotted something in the margin. “And Meg Bates, you joined together, didn’t you? What was her first impression?”
    â€œHonestly, you’d think she’d won a first-class ticket.” I smiled, remembering Meg’s excitement. “She loved it. Meg loved every minute of that job.”
    I SPENT THE BETTER PART of the morning educating Steele on the life of a stewardess. Hardly newsworthy. But he’d asked, and so as we sat at the table in the front room, I told him all about it: league after league of making beds, cleaning cabins and alleyways, scrubbing toilets, drawing baths at the right time and temperature. Stewards and stewardesses existed for the comfort of the upper-class passengers. We were to be outof sight and within call, summoned like trained dogs. Run my bath. Fetch my tea. Hang my clothes. Arrange these flowers. Each stewardess was assigned to about a dozen cabins—enough to keep you hopping, all right. And we worked six straight sailing days from five thirty in the morning till eleven at night, squeezing in our meals when we could, second-class leftovers hastily scarfed where we