Cherished Affliction Novels & Stories

Then he said, "Vane always spoke very highly of your father. It would have pleased him to see his territory go to someone worthy." And he left. I stood there and thought about the word *pleased* and the word *worthy* and my father at fifty-three and thirty wolves in a southern corridor that nobody talks about anymore. Then I turned around and looked at Lucian Freud who was watching me with the careful stillness of a man who knows the next thirty seconds will decide something. "Tell me everything," I said. "All of it. Every name and detail you have." He held my eyes. "And then?"