You can. That’s what she’d say if she could.

And it’s true. I can. I just don’t want to. I stand up.

“You need a shower, Dad,” I say.

“I had one,” he says.

“You need another one.”

His shoulders sag some more.

The bathroom is across the landing. The towels are plentiful and clean, but hardened by years of laundering. There is no lock on the door, but there is a chair I can jam against the handle. The shower is in the bath. I lean in and turn it on. The pressure is sluggish and it takes ages to adjust the temperature. “Dad, are you ready?” I ask through the bedroom door. He doesn’t answer. “I’m coming in,” I say, louder than necessary. “Are you decent?”

I open the door and Dad is standing exactly where I left him, fully clothed.

“You really don’t want to have a shower, do you?” I say.

“I had one,” he says again, and there is so much hope in his face. As if victory is within his reach.

“Mam says you have to have a shower,” I tell him.

“Who?”

“Teresa. Your wife.”

“Oh.”

He starts unbuttoning his shirt. I take a breath and walk towards him. Undo his belt. Pull his trousers down. I get him to hold on to the bedstead as I lift first one, then the other foot out of the legs. I hold a towel in front of him. “Your...underpants,” I say.

“What about them?”

“Can you take them off?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to have a shower.”

He struggles out of his Y-fronts and I avert my eyes, wrap the towel around him and lead him into the bathroom. The running water steams up the window. I open it a notch, and when I turn around, Dad is standing in the middle of the bathroom floor, the towel that was preserving his dignity in a heap on the floor at his feet.

He looks so small.

How did he get to be so small?

I remember thinking he was a giant. When I was a girl. There is an old man in his place now. Small and scared.

His skin—like white parchment paper—hangs in limp folds from his frail body.

“Right, let’s get you into the shower,” I say, turning away from him and testing the water with my bare arm, the way I used to do when the girls were little. Now I know why nurses talk in loud, cheerful voices. “There,” I say, looking anywhere but at my naked father. “The water is perfect. It’s not too hot and it’s not too cold. It’s just right.” I keep up this meaningless chatter as I coax him, first one leg then the other, over the side of the bath that seems higher than the side of any other bath I’ve ever come across. He grips my shoulder with his hand, the nails that I have yet to clip cutting into my skin through the thin fabric of my top. I lift the showerhead down from the hook in the wall, turn it on him, talking all the while.