Now, she watched the televised black slit of her father’s mouth as language slipped out of it on curls of exhaled Lucky Strike. Phil’s hands shaped the air in front of his rotting chest as he talked of the little Irish wren, and there was just a whisper of alcohol in there, softening his tongue and wetting those mischievous, fond eyes. It was so easy to hate this man – the facts spoke for themselves – but it was still hard to dislike him. And it was devastatingly easy to love him. To flock around and keen when he died, because all the words died with him.
