she gestures vanessa over and pulls her feet off the seat cushion to make room on the couch the furniture in this room is draped with old rugs ragged antiques with worn tassels and frayed patterns they smell of old life older than joanna the smell of a generation past what is that smell that grandmotherly smell how it lingers in the nostrils vanessa remembers her gramdma and feels the ache of death through her bones .