That time was blurred in Heloise’s memory now, more than thirty years later. She’d been convinced for a while that she’d accompanied her mother to France; vividly she could picture her father, motionless in his hospital bed, his skin yellow-brown against the pillow, his closed eyelids bulging and naked without their rimless round glasses, his glossy black beard spread out over the white sheet. But Angie assured her that she was never there.
-- Narrator (Page 2)

Importance: At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes Heloise's response to her father's death. As a child, she imagined that she had seen her father in the hospital after the car accident even though she had not. This description serves as an early indication that Heloise never fully grieved her father in the way she needed, and that missing piece of her life is what excites her when she meets Delia at Antony's...