‘I didn’t know if I would come, either,’ I say. There’s a harshness to my voice that makes me feel both proud and ashamed of myself.

‘Well, I’m glad you did. And Heidi told you, did she? My news?’

‘That you’re dying? Yes.’

He winces a little at the word dying, as if my uttering it will summon the Grim Reaper sooner.

‘If I can get over this operation, I might get back on my feet again,’ he says. ‘For a while anyway.’

I nod. I don’t know what he expects me to say.

‘Ciara, I don’t have much time, but I wondered if I might have enough time to make things right with you. We’ve wasted so many years. If there’s any chance at all that we can even start to reconcile … it would mean more to me than I can say.’

I wait for him to say he’s sorry. I will him to say it. I’ve wanted him to say it for twenty years. Surely now, when time is running out, when he says he wants to reconcile – when he wants that more than he can say – surely now he can force those words out.

Maybe, if he does, I can think about a reconciliation. He’s scared now – I can see that in his eyes – in the way he looks at me. I need to know if he is really interested in acknowledging the pain he caused, or if he’s just scared of the judgement he’ll face from his God.

‘Heidi says you have maybe three months. Six at most,’ I say, picking imaginary fluff from the blanket on the bed.

‘I’ll not see six,’ he says. ‘I feel it. I can feel it getting closer. The cancer’s spreading.’

I look at him. There’s so much I want to say that I don’t know where to start. I could quip that the cancer started to spread a long, long time ago. But I don’t.

‘I’m scared, Ciara,’ he says, his voice weak. Pathetic.

I close my eyes. Just once, Dad, I think. Just say sorry once.

I can feel tears prick at my eyes. A well of emotion I know wants a release rises up in me. It’s a mixture of anger and grief and fear. I’m that thirteen-year-old again having her heart broken, asking her daddy to say he loved her enough to stay and that he was sorry that he ever hurt her.

I swallow them down and look him straight in the eyes. He will not see me cry. He will never know how much he hurt me, or how scared I was.

‘I’m not sure what you want me to do about that,’ I say, not caring in that moment about the icy tone in my voice.

Chapter Seven

Joe

Now

I don’t like being in this house alone any more. I used to enjoy the silence. I’d be happy lost among my books, or out in the garden. Now, no amount of books can distract me from the knowledge that my body is giving up on me.