‘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.’

For a second, I can’t find the words. It’s easier in Girdwood, sitting on Cedar’s bed with the hall light coming in, his hand squeezing mine. But then it comes to me, and one line leads to another. When I get to the chorus, I can just make out Cedar’s voice singing along in a whisper, far far away.

At the finish, he calls out, ‘Thanks, Mike,’ and there are shuffling, clunking noises as he gives the phone back to Wade.

‘Good job, Mike,’ Wade says, his mouth too close to the phone. He’s trying to speak quietly. ‘Boogiemen gone. You have saved the day. Or night, in this case. I will leave you to your vacation.’

I put the phone down on the counter. The song is still in my head. My right hand is still clenched. I’m not a natural singer. Or maybe my hand was just holding Cedar’s. Lacy is looking at me, suds running down the brush she’s holding.

‘My beer-garden bogan side comes through again.’

‘Saving the day,’ she says. ‘My beer-garden bogan superhero.’

Cedar will sleep now. There’s every chance of it. Some of the sounds when he passed the phone to Wade were him rolling over towards the wall, pulling his sheets up and bunching them around himself, his eyes already closed. I know precisely the way his hair is on the pillow, the expression on his face, the calm that comes when he decides the crisis has gone.