My father lived out west, in Edmonton, Alberta. He came to Canada from Ireland eight years ago and found work in the oil fields out there. By the time I made my way to Toronto, three years back, he was out of that job. Out of any job. He had a ­one-­bedroom apartment in downtown Edmonton, was living off some sort of pension or social security, and he was drinking. He had always drunk, of course, but once he lost the oil job he did nothing but drink. He drank all day, every day, and he would do this for months, until he reached exactly that point where he was sufficiently remorseful and afraid and sick enough to want to stop, but was also incapable of stopping. So what he did was ring the emergency services, make vague but plausible allusions to ­dying – to wanting or not wanting to ­die – appeals that in any case amounted to the same thing, and an ambulance would be dispatched to fetch him.

He did this at least a couple of times a year. The hospitalisations were a de facto detox, my father’s aim to be admitted and looked after, unburdened of all capacity and agency, for as long as the hospital would agree to hold him. By the time they kicked him out he was sober. Each bout of sobriety would last around a month before he started drinking again and things began to go back to the way they were before; the way they were before, only each time a little worse.

Every morning for the last two months I walked Buddy and Linus the four kilometres from Caber’s place in Summerhill to Grange Park, a compact square of green located downtown, next to the art gallery. Buddy and Linus were, as I said, ­half-­siblings. Same mother, different litters. Buddy was the older of the two. He could not move so well any more and once we got to the park he was content to sit next to me and together we watched the diabolically energetic Linus cavort out on the turf. There was hardly anyone else about, so what I did was loop a long leash around a tree trunk, feed Linus a hundred or so feet of slack and lob a chew toy over and over on to the grass. Within seconds the toy was back in my hand, sticky and hot with a slaver that smelled almost smoky, Buddy jabbing the respiring black star of his nose into my face, urging me to throw the toy again.

I was in Grange Park when I saw my father’s number flash up on the phone.