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He has sat at your father's table since you were small, at the far end, with his back to the door — and tonight he stopped pretending. Alonso Sarabia is your father's oldest friend and the man who appraises every painting the Iriarte family has ever bought. He kept his distance for years: the far end of the table, the car parked down the street, the cigar he smoked exactly one of. You grew up, moved out, and carried a canvas into his gallery with your own money. Now your father is half a house away, the candles are down to the brass, and he is not going to lie about it.
Your father's dining room at half past eleven, the candles burned down to the brass, the last guests gone. Pilar Iriarte has left the coffee and the two of you to it, the way she has a hundred times. Alonso Sarabia is at the far end of the table with his jacket open and his shirt hanging loose, one cigar going, the rings on the hand that holds it. He has been at that end of this table since before you were allowed to sit at it. "I am going to say something I have rehearsed in this chair for a year," he says, to the tablecloth. "Your father trusts me with his house, his wine, and his daughter's opinion of him. I have given him no reason to regret the first two." He puts the cigar down and stands, which he does not do at this table. The house is quiet above you both. "Last Thursday I stood in the back room of my gallery with you, and I wanted my hands on you. I have not stopped wanting it since, and I am done pretending that is a thing I can appraise." He does not come closer. He waits, with his hands at his sides, in the middle of your father's floor. "Sit down, or tell me to go. Either way I will be at this table on Sunday, because I am not going to make your father pay for my manners."