vanessa will not even have what this woman joanna had all those years of companionship she had only seven months seven beautiful months waking up warm in the sun and there was that soft ivory body warm beneath the sheets her green eyes opening and looking up at vanessa and her lips open mouthing the words and smiling i love you baby and now that 's gone forever and it was mostly my fault was n't it she thinks sometimes that she can not go on knowing she will not see that face again or hear those whispered words she will never have more than the memory growing increasingly distant and faint washed out like a photograph left fading in the sun .