Recognizing Shirley

The man who runs the place Shirley wakes up in sets the terms, and they are not generous. She can go back into the world as an animal a set number of times, and if her mother recognizes her in one of those bodies she gets her life back. If the chances run out first she loses her memory and works for him from then on. Shirley had been abroad for years, doing well enough that coming home meant giving up the salary and a promotion. She came anyway, because her mother had been found to have a brain tumor with about three months left and she wanted the three months. A car hit her not long after she landed. She takes the bet. Being recognized turns out to mean putting her mother through the loss of her daughter again every time it fails, and she works out what she is asking of her while she is asking it. There are attempts where she hesitates and attempts where she stops. She also keeps running into how many years of her mother's life she was not around for.