He could have a nightcap, check his emails, and get some sleep. God knows he needed it. Too many 06:25 a.m. flights to Ottawa, too many late night flights back to Halifax.

His mother had been worried that he would get sick from exhaustion, but he downplayed her concerns. I need to be here, Ma. She thought it was because of her. But really, it was because of him. He had squeezed her hand, the bones as brittle as twigs of saffron.

Would she allow him to hold her hand after he told her what he had come to confess?

His father had left on the light in the foyer, a small chandelier that had yellowed with age. Light shone blearily through the dusty pendants. He closed the front door, pushed the deadbolt above the knob into place, and then slid the bottom deadbolt. The yellow warning light glowed from the alarm panel. Once again, the alarm was offline. He wondered if his father had remembered to call the security company.

He doubted it. He and his father were in crisis mode now, the days stretching out as daily responsibilities were abandoned to focus on his mother’s last moments.

He switched off the overhead light and hurried upstairs. His childhood bedroom, which had lost its ability to comfort years ago, sat to the right. Despite the fact he had stayed at his parents’ house off and on for the past few months, the top level of the house had the unmistakable miasma of neglect to it. For years, his parents had slept on the main floor to accommodate his father’s lack of mobility. But his mother had converted their old bedroom upstairs to a library, and she had once enjoyed spending a few hours a day in there while his father napped.

He hung his garment bag on a hook mounted on the back of his bedroom door. The bag covered the little lines that marched proudly up the doorframe. Next to each milestone the date and his height had been inscribed, first in his father’s bold penmanship. Then, after his ninth birthday, in his mother’s neat printing.

His phone vibrated in his breast pocket. It was almost like a second, electronic heartbeat, it vibrated so often. But the phone calls no longer caused his pulse to accelerate, as it had when he was first elected. Back then it had been exhilarating: was it a constituent, a senator, the Prime Minister himself? He had answered the calls proudly, the youngest MP from his region, a junior lawyer with the halo of potential over his head.