I wake from a light sleep, cold and awkward, my neck stiff from dozing off in the chair by my mother’s bed.

The moon is a perfect sphere, bright and watchful. It’s moved around the sky and tells me it’s late, gone midnight. I forgot to close the curtains and my mother is looking at me with dulled eyes, but there’s love in the creak of her voice.

‘He’s lost his way. Don’t hold it against him.’

So my stupid, drunken father has woken her up too. I reach for her hand across the covers. It’s dry and weightless, sticks of bone covered in skin. ‘But he’s not here, is he? He should be with you.’

‘He’s doing his best, my love.’ She’s speaking so quietly I have to lean closer to hear her. ‘It’s a lot to take in. For all of us.’

‘I hate him.’ My whisper is full of resentment.

‘Bitterness is a wasted emotion.’ She gathers herself to say something more, but the effort is clear. Her words drift and fade, and I have to fill in the spaces, but I think I know what she’s saying. ‘Don’t let it poison you.’

‘He promised he wouldn’t leave your side.’

The ghost of a smile and her hand twitches beneath mine. The silver chain she always wears catches in the warmth of the lamplight. The clock ticks on, counting out her minutes left in this world. And then, ‘Lies are a necessary evil sometimes, sweet girl.’

She closes her eyes, and there’s a rattle in her throat, and her breathing becomes even more laboured. I wait for her to speak again but she doesn’t say anything, and I sing to her, softly, so only she can hear.

And for a brief and perfect time, it’s just me and my mother, breathing and loving each other in the lonely heart of the night.

I smell him before I see him. Cigarettes and the damp outdoors. The sweet-sour breath of a drunk. Perfume. A beer can cracking open like the sound of a gunshot, and before I know it, he’s leaning against the door frame, watching us.

‘My two girls,’ he says, his words slurring thickly together like water and earth to make mud. I want to snap at him, What about Maureen Connolly?, but I swallow it down for my mother’s sake.

I stand up and go to him. ‘The out-of-hours nurse came by. She’s topped up her morphine but she says you’re to do it later, if she needs it.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he says in a fake American accent, and nods in slow motion, his chin pressing against the top of his chest. ‘You go to bed. I’ll take it from here.’

He staggers across the room. I eye him doubtfully. ‘Are you sure?’