But she’d lost him again. His eyes focused through the flames on something that was beyond sight. Katie looked at him thoughtfully for a second and padded upstairs with her sleeping burden.

Billy wasn’t really watching the flickering screen in front of him. It was only a TV movie – some pile of junk in big houses with one of the actresses that used to be in Charlie’s Angels. He was looking at his Dad. He’d listened from the sidelines to everything Sam had told Katie about his day. The rude man that his Dad had been rude back to, and who could lose him his job. The buzzing head and the fainting. The hours in between when Sam had walked along the railroad in the snow before coming home.

And he didn’t know why his Mom was being so cheerful. He was real worried about his Dad, even if she wasn’t.

He turned off the TV with the remote and trotted over to Sam’s chair. Billy slid his little hand beneath the large, rough, weathered one that was resting limply on the arm of the chair and smiled as the big fingers closed round his.

‘Guess the logs got wet when I dropped them.’

‘Guess so.’

Billy let go of his smile and studied Sam’s face.

‘Dad?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Is everything going to be okay?’

The adult concern in the child’s voice snatched Sam out of his reverie. He sat forward in his chair and took Billy’s other hand. ‘Course it is, Billy. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired, that’s all. Come here, you.’

He pulled his son up onto a lap that was still warm from his daughter’s body-heat, and kissed Billy’s smooth forehead through his hair.

‘Why don’t we go to Calgary soon? Catch the Flames.’

Billy lit up. ‘Yeah? You can get tickets?’

‘Probably not. Doesn’t stop us trying.’

‘Crucial!’

Billy bounced off Sam’s knee, his anxiety momentarily forgotten as he danced a series of mimed hockey passes on the hearth rug. That made Sam laugh. Felt like he hadn’t laughed in a long time.

‘Okay, Wayne Gretsky. Get to bed.’

‘Who’s Wayne Gretsky?’

‘You taking a correspondence course in how to make me feel old?’

Billy surged forward, kissed his father on the mouth and ran out of the room. The wet ghost of that kiss stayed there for minutes after the boy had left, and Sam savoured it as its sweetness slowly evaporated from his lips.

His children. His wife. The things he lived for. He wasn’t going to lose them. He couldn’t lose them. Sam leaned back into the old recliner and looked at the ceiling. The firelight, weak as it was, made a shadow of the mantelpiece flicker on the plaster.