“When my father asked to speak to me in private, without my mother present, when he beckoned me close to him and used what strength he had left to pull the oxygen mask aside, I thought he was going to tell me he loved me, that he was proud of me. Instead, he told me about Eleanor Lavelle. How they’d met in some grubby strip bar, the paid-for trysts, how she’d quickly gone from prostitute to mistress. Then, he told me about you. And he told me to handle the problem. So I did.”
