‘What are you doing here? Jesus.’ Stewart Daley’s eyes are open and there are traces of tears on his cheeks, but there’s a slackness in his features that isn’t ordinarily there. I wave one hand in front of his face as he continues to make that soft, awful sound, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. I circle him a couple of times to make sure. ‘He’s not, uh, here,’ I murmur after a moment. ‘What do you mean?’ Ryan says sharply. He pulls the faded nightdress roughly out of his father’s hands and throws it onto Lauren’s bed, then gives him a hard shake. The two men, of a height, eye to 121 unseeing eye. Lauren’s wardrobe door is open, its little automatic light on. I walk carefully around Ryan’s father and pick up the nightie, throw it back inside untidily, close the door. ‘He’s …’ What is the word I’m searching for? ‘Sleep … walking.’ Ryan lets go of his father’s shoulders as if electrified. ‘I thought he’d got … over that,’ he says after a long pause.
