“Yes, the community.” Peter was from Irish Catholic stock, my mother’s family Italian American. Both clichés, in our way, I thought. I stared up at Mary’s plaster face, frozen in an expression of pained kindness. “I suppose I was used to all this stuff as a kid. Faces staring down at me from the wall. Seems vaguely oppressive now.”

Peter was studying me. “Are you okay? How do you feel?”

Irritation flared. “Fine,” I snapped.

He flinched, and pressed his forefinger to the space between his eyes, and I realized he was straightening nonexistent glasses.

I was suddenly ashamed. “Peter, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not here to make you feel sorry. This is your time.” He spread his big hands. “Everything you do now, you’re going to remember for the rest of your life.”

“Christ, you’re right,” I said, dismayed.

I walked the few paces to the kitchen door, which was open. There was a musty smell. A cup, saucer, and plate sat with bits of cutlery on the table. The plate was covered with cold grease and dried flecks of what looked like bacon. There was a little puddle of liquid in the bottom of the cup, on which green bacterial colonies floated; I recoiled.

“I found him in the hall,” Peter said.

“I heard.” Dad had suffered a series of massive strokes. I picked up the cup, saucer, and plate and carried them to the sink.

“I don’t think the fall itself hurt him. He looked peaceful. He was lying just there.” He pointed to the hall. “I used his phone to call the hospital. I didn’t go into the rest of the house. Not even to clean up.”

“That was thoughtful,” I murmured.

I looked out of the kitchen window at the small back garden. The grass needed cutting, I noted absently, and the pale spires of ant colonies towered amid the green. In one corner of the garden, where they would get the most light, were the skeletal forms of the azaleas, my father’s pride and joy, cherished for years—Christ, decades. But at this time of year they were as barren and stark as at midwinter.

I looked down at the sink. Clean dishes, looking dusty, were racked up, and there was a stink of staleness from the drain. I turned on the taps and tipped the mold out of the cup into the drainer. The cold tea poured away, and green bacterial spots slid silently, but there was still plenty of scum clinging to the cup. I looked for washing-up liquid, but couldn’t see any, even in the small, crammed cupboard under the sink. I pulled the cup out of the water again and looked into it, feeling foolish, futile, ensnared.

Peter was standing in the kitchen door. “I’ll bring over some Fairy Liquid if you like.”