So that night, after we had eaten the begrudgingly prepared dinner Heidi had thrown together, sitting around the table in silence while Kathleen grilled a couple of pork chops for my father and had cut them up as if he were some feeble infant, my frustration had grown.

All this fussing around for a man who didn’t deserve a moment of it.

It seemed like such a waste of everyone’s energy.

He seemed like a waste of everyone’s energy.

It was around nine when Kathleen presented me with a cup of tea and a plate holding three custard cream biscuits and asked me to bring my father up his supper. A man of plain tastes, custard creams were his favourite biscuit and Kathleen told us all that she’d gone and bought them especially. ‘But good ones, mind, not those value pack ones that taste of nothing.’

I’d trudged up the stairs to find my father sitting on the edge of his bed, his feet in his slippers on the floor. He seemed to be lost in his thoughts.

‘Kathleen asked me to bring you some supper,’ I said in a voice that contained no trace of the warmth Kathleen had shown him.

‘She’s good to me,’ he said, ‘she always was.’

I crossed the room to put the cup and the plate on the bedside locker. I was just turning to leave, when he grabbed me by the wrist. For a man who was supposedly so weak he held a firm enough grasp on my wrist to make me wince.

‘Ciara, love,’ he said.

I felt my blood run cold just at the tone of his voice.

I tried to pull my hand away, but he held on tighter, pulling me closer.

‘Ciara,’ he said again. ‘Can you help me? I need your help to get to the bathroom. My legs are feeling a bit weak.’

‘I should get Alex to help you,’ I said.

I didn’t want to be anywhere near him, never mind take him to the bathroom.

‘Sure you’re here, you can help me, can’t you?’

He looked up at me, the expression on his face painted as weak and vulnerable, but the grasp of his hand, the friction burn I felt starting on my wrist, told a different story.

I felt my own legs weaken, but I vowed to be strong. If he wanted help to get to the bathroom, I’d do it. He wouldn’t upset me. That’s what he wanted, I think, to set me on edge and upset me. To remind me that the balance of power would always fall on his side.

‘Let’s go then,’ I said, stepping back.

He let go of my wrist, took my hand instead. I closed my eyes for just a second, just enough to steady myself.

I helped him to stand and we walked, him holding on to my arm, towards the bathroom.

‘You were always such a good girl, Ciara,’ he said. ‘Such a great daughter. We were so close once, weren’t we?’