When I’m seemingly done she smiles, this time with teeth. “You were always so creative, so lovely with colors the way your dad was with words. You would always make up stories, too, from pictures in your parents’ art books. You’d find the tiniest detail, a dog in the background of a painting, a window into a field, and expand upon it. Your Dad loved putting you on his lap and leafing through those books. It was a gift to watch.” She puts her delicate hand on mine and the touch is so foreign, so warm, that before I know it, I have tears leaking down my face.

“I miss him so much,” I whisper. And instead of gently patting me and puckering her mouth into a pitying frown, she just squeezes my hand and says, “I know.”

I pause before wiping at my tears, almost enjoying the burn in my eyes. And then it’s like my mouth is a leaky faucet. I can’t stop talking. “When he died, I kept waiting for some kind of resolution, a sign from him that things would be easier after this crescendo, from here on out. I kept looking for him in everything, in the scratches on my medicine cabinet, the bubbles in boiling water, waiting for his voice to rise out of thin air and tell me to move on. And then I realized I’d never made an effort to know him, that even if it were logical to look, I wouldn’t know where to begin.” I wring my hands, but it doesn’t stop me from talking, voicing all these private moments, these unspoken thoughts, I’ve had in the last year.

“We cohabitated for so long. He raised me. And he was good at it, too. He was always there when I needed him. Too much in some ways. But he was so shut off about himself and I was too self-involved to ask. He never wanted to talk about his feelings or his struggles. Or my mother.”

Anneliese nods, taking back my hand and massaging the knuckles, her fingers pressing those hills and valleys. “He was a very kind man. I don’t think he knew exactly what to do with you, but he learned along the way. I appreciated seeing that. So many men don’t even try to learn about their children, their daughters. But he wanted to know every last detail, to archive it. He had a list of all your favorite foods, your favorite movies, your favorite books, pinned up in his office. But of course, you were a toddler, so they changed all the time. He constantly had to write out new lists. Your mom would go ballistic because the tape he used peeled the paint off the walls.” She laughs lightly.