She reminded me of someone who storms into your life, just as she’d done in her father’s living room, and right away fluffs your pillows, tears open the windows, straightens two old paintings you’ve stopped seeing though they’d never budged from your mantelpiece for years, and with a deft foot flattens the ripples on an ancient rug, only to remind you, once she’s added flowers to a vase that’s been standing empty for ever so long that, in case you were still struggling to downplay her presence, you wouldn’t dare ask for more than a week, a day, an hour of this.
