Joe McKee is dead. I inhale deeply.

In that moment everything is still. The ticking of the clock is the only thing to punctuate the silence. I can almost feel Alex’s words, and the realisation of what they mean, move around the room, around the house. They wash over us all, and they start to sink in and the noise builds slowly. Kathleen wails, quietly at first, but her cry increases in volume and intensity within the same breath. Ciara calmly, maybe too calmly, asks Alex to repeat himself, and she’s already moving towards the stairs as if she needs to see it for herself. Stella is calling her back. Alex is looking at me, watching for my reaction, perhaps. I’m frozen to the spot. I dare not move, or hope …

Ciara pushes past Alex, knocking him flat against the wall. Stella is following her up the stairs, pleading with her to slow down. Kathleen has slumped to the floor and she is keening, rocking backwards and forwards. She is muttering something. The words of a prayer or something that I can’t quite hear over the buzzing in my head. Alex moves to her and not me, sitting beside her and wrapping his arms around her.

‘It looks very peaceful,’ he says, his voice shaky. ‘He looks very peaceful. He must have just gone in his sleep. I’m so sorry.’

I watch them as if I’m watching a TV show. Without emotion. Without a feeling it is real.

I hear a shout from the top of the stairs. A cry out. A ‘Daddy’ – it’s the most vulnerable I have ever known Ciara to be.

Stella appears at the top of the stairs, her face as ashen as Alex’s. ‘I think we should call an ambulance,’ she says.

‘But if he’s dead …’ I blurt. My voice sounds funny.

‘I think it’s still protocol,’ she says.

‘And Dr Sweeney,’ Kathleen says, her voice thick, trembling with grief.

‘It’s very late,’ I say. ‘And a bad night. I’m sure the ambulance crew can do what’s necessary.’

‘Dr Sweeney won’t mind. He’s a friend of the family. Joe would want him to be here. He would want to be here,’ Kathleen says, her voice borderline hysterical.

‘Okay,’ I say, ‘I’ll make the calls.’ Anything to calm her down.

I half walk, half stumble through to the living room, dig my phone from the changing bag I’ve carried in with me. The same pale pink blanket is still poking out of the top of it.

I make the calls. I hardly recognise my own voice as I speak, and then I sit and wait to feel different.

I always thought the minute he was dead, my shame would die with him. But I feel it niggle as I climb the stairs. It has mutated, though. This time, some of it comes from the fact that a tiny spark inside me feels alive for the first time in twenty years.