We have driven Faye out of her kitchen to do our share of the tidying up, and Simon is upstairs too, with the last of the bottle of red, perhaps already deep in research. It’s just the two of us, Lacy and me, and we have turned off the TV. She’s barefoot and I’m kneeling next to her painted toenails, each one a different colour, painted by Cedar, who did the job with great attention to detail.

I have two more plates than I have spaces on the bottom level, but filling a dishwasher is a Tetris game at the best of times.

I can imagine Simon up there in his study, putting ‘Napoleon figurine’ into Google, flicking past all the hand-in-coat versions. Or perhaps he has smarter search terms. Or more specific places to search than the universe, via the world’s most obvious search engine.

I stand up, to straighten my knee, set the plates down and pull out the upper rack of the dishwasher to see if I can make space there.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

‘Who can that be?’ Lacy says, looking towards the sound. ‘Middle of the night in LA. And Alaska.’

It’s her father. I show her the screen so she can see his name.

‘Mike,’ Wade says when I answer. He’s making sure his voice sounds calm.

‘Speaker, speaker,’ Lacy tells me.

I tap the button. ‘What’s up, Wade?’

‘Nothing catastrophic. Let me tell you that straight up,’ he says. ‘Is this a good time for you? I did the math, and I think it’s good. We have ourselves a sleeping problem.’

Lacy puts her hand on her chest and breathes out.

‘Big day at Disneyland,’ Wade says. ‘Lots of junk food and rides, and now Cedar’s woken up from some crazy dream and says he can’t go back to sleep. We tried a bunch of things. There’s a song you sing, apparently. A song that always fixes it.’ There’s noise in the background, Cedar’s voice, small and far away, clicks and shudders and satellite sounds. ‘“Throw Your Arms Around Me”,’ Wade says, measuring out each word, not certain he’s got it right. ‘Not literally. That’s not a request from me. That’s the name of the song.’ He laughs at his own joke. ‘Cedar assures me that if you’ll sing that song, the boogiemen will all disappear and sleep will return to the land. Are you familiar with it?’

‘Yep.’ It was Cedar who picked the song from one of our Spotify playlists. He’s no fan of my singing, but it’s the one song I’m allowed, when it’s for this purpose. ‘I can vouch for its effectiveness.’

Lacy leans across. ‘Me too. It’s an Australian song, Dad.’

My throat’s drying up. ‘Feel free not to put me on speaker, Wade.’

‘There’s three people here needing some sleep, Mike,’ he says. ‘It might have to be speaker.’ There’s a voice in the background. Colleen’s, I think. ‘Handing the phone to Cedar now. He wants it nice and close up.’