she wants to tell the girl all about it wants to explain everything she wants to tell vanessa how it felt when her parents died but she can not speak not about that not now she was thirty years old when it happened when they died she was called down to the hospital morgue to identify the bodies they 'd found id but they were n't sure could n't say for sure there was n't much left of them her father in his cardigan sweater god he 'd loved those wore them all year round she remembers when she was a little girl just a little slip of a thing her granddaddy used to say before the dementia got him she would bury her face in her father 's chest any time she was afraid was sad was frightened she would bury her face in her father 's warm cardigan would cry to him and his arms wrapping around her the smell of it was written into her mind and there he was on the cold table and they had stripped him mostly naked nothing but a sheet over his body lacerated and bruised and burned and she 'd been unable to breathe unable to cry even she just sank against the wall gaping like a fish and she 'd tried to look away from it and she 'd found her mother 's body next to his her mother her mother god she could n't even think about her mother that was much too hard she looked back at her father looked at his body thinking about him when he was alive she thought of tall grass he 'd hated to mow the lawn and mom would n't do it the job hardly ever got done until joanna was a teenager and they paid her to do it for them he 'd used to walk barefoot would stand there with no shoes no socks feeling the grass between his toes smiling up at the sun darn nice day he would say to her darn nice and she would laugh and run around and he 'd adjust his glasses and put his hands in his pockets he 'd been so proud of her his child his only child his little girl you could see him bursting at the seams with pride like he wanted to run around run barefoot through the neighborhood with her up on his shoulders just shouting this is my child this is my little girl look at her is n't she beautiful is n't she smart is n't she perfect i 'm so proud of her and then he was gone they were both gone and she had nothing there was nobody else in the world who was that proud of her who loved her that much how could there be and then there was david smiling at her across the cafe falling for her and she falling for him and she 'd been open been raw been a wound been hungry for him enough to let herself fall in love with him even though even though even though and now it turned out he 'd felt the same felt more of the same had hated her in some part of himself she could n't understand how had they ended up together there had been good times had n't there or was it all just a fucking delusion was she just trying to justify all the time she 'd lost to him all the years given up she pitied him almost after all he was dead and she was still alive she could still move on could still have something she could fall in love she did n't need him she could be in love again so fuck you david .