Morris was numb with fatigue, the pain dulled by sheer exhaustion. Ayesha ached for Kristin as she listened to her parents talking next door – his ghost was so shy. Perhaps ghosts feared rejection?

The fan turned and swung, breathing over Maria and her family every ten seconds.

Jao turned and reached for her. He found he was touching not her but their youngest son, and she was behind him with just the same eyes, light coming not from the stars or moon but from the street lamp.

‘We are making a better life.’

‘Of course.’

‘We’re lucky, aren’t we?’

It was just one of the memories Maria used, to ease herself into sleep – that precious, holy time of three in one, whispering while the other children slept. The wind rattled the window, but it was the harmless edge of a typhoon heading out to Manila Bay. Someone was walking across the landing outside, trying to be quiet, and she heard a door close softly.

She thought of the man with the kind eyes, whose name she had forgotten. He was quietly reassuring, and she now had a guide – she texted Jao to let him know, yearning to speak to her sister. Manila time ran seven hours ahead, so the house would be full of just the same soft breathing and snores as The Golden Fleece. Another hour before her district came to life, but the first jeepneys would be stopping already for those on the earliest shifts.

Her mind was full of numbers, and she tried to erase them.

The hundreds earned, and the hundreds sent. The thousands borrowed, and the thousands invested or promised – always set against the hundreds deducted and never seen, and the unforeseen expenses such as her housemate’s birthday – the contributions to which you could never say no, and to which you should never say no. She saw little Nikko’s eyes for a moment, and it was him beside her, replacing Miguel. She’d had to watch his birthday through the screen of her tablet – and she couldn’t resist the urge to call up the photographs right now, whatever the pain: she sat up and drank a little water. Two more years for her, and five for Jao… and there was Nikko, and here was she.

She opened another folder, and wondered if she could bear the whole birthday movie, and listen to her children’s voices. No, she couldn’t. Instead, she would listen to the rain that had already started, and thank God she had a guide. She was glad to be here, of course, but when had she last endured such solitude? The man’s name was Michael! She remembered it, and knew he’d been sent to look after her.