““Only hours earlier, my da had come in from his job at the bar and changed his clothes, as he always did after work, shedding rank smells with each layer. He sat in a chair at the small kitchen table with a pile of newspapers he said he’d found on the way home, dropping sections on the floor as he finished them. Mam mended a heap of clothes she’d taken in for money. Dominick peeled potatoes. James played in a corner. I drew on a piece of paper with Maisie, teaching her letters, the hot-water-bottle weight and warmth of her on my lap, her sticky fingers in my hair.””
