Some nights we would be woken by the screaming, while on others its absence thundered and crashed through the house; echoing in the hallways, keeping us anxiously awake with its foreboding silence.

On this night there was no such scream. Instead I could hear only my fathers gentle sobbing. I had already mourned the loss of my father – the man, now each night I kept vigil for his decaying mind.

I slipped out of bed and downstairs to fetch him a glass of water and a damp flannel.

When I had walked back upstairs and reached his room my Mother was already there, untangling him from the drenched bed sheets and grasping his flailing hands. I placed the glass on his bedside table and helped my Mother calm him.

His cotton pyjama’s clung imperviously to his chest with sweat as he struggled. I watched as he threw out his arm, knocking the glass of water from its perch and to the ground in a cascade of water and shattering glass.

Finally he lay back exhausted. I brushed the hair from his eyes and whispered “Father, please don’t cry.”

Beside us my mother collapsed into a chair, her body language mimicking her husbands, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Quietly I climbed over my father to lie next to him and dozed, afraid to let go of his hand.