He's probably the only one who really understands my grief, because we both have the same way of loving children, him and I. But whenever we talk about Paul, there's always a moment where he takes his head in his hands, gives me a strange look, and says, It can't be easy for Laurent. There's always a moment where it's Laurent he feels sorry for, Laurent he understands, where he becomes Laurent, where he suffers like Laurent. It does something visceral to them both, the fact that I'm sleeping with girls, I see it whenever I see my dad. My dad's body is Laurent's body. It's the same panic they experience. And suddenly my mind is flooded with all the images of my dad that I'd forgotten about because they're so different from everything he is. And in that moment, I remember that this gentle man, whom I've never seen angry, who's never jealous of anyone or anything, would sometimes hit my mother, my mother, who was the strength to his weakness. It didn't happen every day, but it happened, it did happen. I remember. Sometimes I wonder whether my son will struggle to be a man as much as his father does, as much as my father does.

The nurse knocks at the door, drops off a tumbler with his evening medication and sleeping tablets inside, then leaves. He takes them and goes to bed. Goodnight darling, goodnight, Dad. I watch him go, watch him walk down the corridor, it's starting to show, the fact that he's going to die, I wonder when, I wonder whether I should talk to him or whether I should just carry on acting as if he were already dead.

14