“That’s a good idea,” Iris says, picking up the wine bottle and our two glasses. “I’ll bring these outside.” Somehow, Jacques seems to know not to ask if she needs assistance. Instead he says, “There is a bench in the herb garden, on the west side of the castle.” He also knows not to point in a westerly direction. Iris nods, tucks the bottle under her arm, dangles the glasses by their stems between her fingers, and manages to arrange herself on her sticks. There are steps from the dining room through the French doors into the garden, and I can hardly bear to look at Iris negotiating them, but I do anyway. So does Jacques, albeit without seeming to.

Upstairs, I help Dad out of his clothes, into his pajamas. The first time I did this, I wept afterwards. The kind of weeping that leaves you dehydrated and spent. “What on earth happened?” Brendan asked when I eventually came downstairs.

“Nothing,” I said.

“But...” he said, lowering his newspaper and peering at me over the top of it, “you’ve been crying.” His face was caked in surprise. It’s true that I don’t cry as a rule. That day was an exception. And I never cried after that, when I helped Dad get dressed or undressed. It was just that day. And the only thing that differentiated it from all the other days was that it was the first day I did it. The first time. Holding out the pajama bottoms so he could step one spindly leg, then the other into them, his hands gripping my shoulders tight. Feeding his arms into the sleeves. Fastening the buttons. Taking off his socks. His feet were cold to the touch and his toenails were pink and square and so like my own. I hadn’t noticed that before.

Was that what made me cry?

Or was it putting him into Kate’s single bed—she had moved to Galway by then—tucking the blanket under his chin the way I used to do with Kate and Anna? Bending to kiss his cheek, slack without the dentures.

“Goodnight, Dad,” I said, turning off the bedroom light.

“Could you leave the light on?” he asked.

Was it that? The plaintive tone of the question that first night. His memory of a child’s fear of the dark.

I left the light on and went into my bedroom, closed the door, lay on the bed, pushed my face into a pillow and wept. It was the kind of weeping that makes you lose track of the time. There was nothing cathartic about it. It does you no good whatever. When you stop, nothing is resolved and everything is the same as it was before except now your face is blotchy and your eyes are swollen into slits and you can’t quite catch your breath and you feel limp with exhaustion.

I told Brendan that I had PMT that night. He nodded swiftly and did not comment further. He is not comfortable with such talk, which he terms women’s issues.