I shook my head. ‘I will kill them,’ I said. Did I mean it? Did I really believe in such voodoo? Could a nail driven into the bloodied organ of a goat be enough to bring about this? It didn’t matter. I needed someone to blame. ‘I will kill those girls for what they have done to you.’

‘My heart was weak all along,’ he replied.

I could hear my mother’s words: His father’s heart gave up on him, and his father’s before that, and his father’s before that …

My father could hear her too. He told me: ‘You be the one to break the cycle, Leah.’ Then he said: ‘I can’t protect you anymore.’

‘Yes, you can,’ I insisted. I ignored the tears that spilled silently down his cheeks. ‘When you get better, you’ll be there for me.’

He shook his head, as much as he was able. ‘A wise man knows when his fortune has run out.’ His voice was like paper. ‘And now I need to confess.’

I didn’t want to hear it; I wasn’t ready. Would I ever be ready?

‘A boat will come,’ I assured him, ‘and then you’ll be –’

‘There is no boat. I need to confess.’

‘I’ll fetch Father Daniel,’ I offered, but he would not let go of my hand.

‘I want to confess to you, Leah.’

If I could have run from that room, I would have done, burst out into the cold air, into a winter’s day too bright for the season, too bright for what was happening to our family in the sickly yellowness of that room. I would have shielded myself from what was to come, had my father die a good man, complete, intact – the man I had always known. But I knew that these were our last moments together, that there would be no more, that I could do nothing but stay, listen.

He swallowed hard. ‘I let the rot set in. I let a boat go down. I have watched those girls –’

‘Stop!’ I called out.

‘I have watched those girls and I know what they’re doing. We’ve turned our backs on them so they’ve turned to the devil. We cannot call ourselves Christians.’ His gaze was fervent; this passion was the only strength he had left. ‘Forgive me,’ he said.

‘That’s not up to me, that’s –’

‘Forgive me!’

His breath came as a desperate rattle. My tears joined his.

‘I have looked my enemy in the eye,’ he went on, ‘and shown him love, because I was afraid he’d punish you, my daughter. Forgive me, forgive me.’

I nodded, because that was what he needed. I should have gone to the door, summoned my mother into the room, not let her miss this moment, but I could not let go of his hand; it was all that tethered him to the earth.