Holly still looked unconvinced. I remembered the first time I saw death in action: I was seven, some fifth cousin up on New Street had had a heart attack, and Ma brought the bunch of us to the wake. It went along much the same lines as Kevin’s: tears, laughs, stories, great towering piles of sandwiches, drinking and singing and dancing till all hours of the night—someone had brought an accordion, someone else had a full repertoire of Mario Lanza. As a beginner’s guide to coping with bereavement, it had been a hell of a lot healthier than anything involving Paula Abdul. It occurred to me to wonder, even taking into account Da’s contribution to the festivities, whether just possibly I should have brought Holly along to Kevin’s wake.

The idea of being in a room with Shay and not being able to beat him to splintered bloody pulp made me light-headed. I thought about being a teenage ape-boy and growing up in great dizzying leaps because Rosie needed me to, and about Da telling me that a man should know what he would die for. You do what your woman or your kid needs, even when it feels a lot harder than dying.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Sunday afternoon, we’ll go along to your nana’s, even if it’s only for a little while. There’ll be a fair bit of talk about your uncle Kevin, but I guarantee you everyone will deal with that their own way: they won’t all spend the whole time in tears, and they won’t think you’re doing anything wrong if you don’t do any crying at all. Think that might help you sort your head out?”

That perked Holly up. She was even looking at me, instead of at Clara. “Yeah. Probably.”

“Well, then,” I said. Something like ice water ran down my spine, but I was just going to have to put up with that like a big boy. “I guess that’s a plan.”

“Seriously? For definite?”

“Yeah. I’ll go ring your auntie Jackie right now, tell her to let your nana know we’ll be there.”

Holly said, “Good,” on another deep sigh. This time I felt her shoulders relax.

“And meanwhile, I bet everything would look brighter if you got a good night’s sleep. Bedtime.”

She wriggled down onto her back and stashed Clara under her chin. “Tuck me in.”

I tucked the duvet around her, just tight enough. “And no nightmares tonight, OK, chickadee? Only sweet dreams allowed. That’s an order.”

“OK.” Her eyes were already closing, and her fingers, curled in Clara’s mane, were starting to loosen. “Night-night, Daddy.”

“Night-night, sweetie.”