In remembering the day the sparrow came into Vanessa's room, she specifically says: "I was petrified. I thought I I would faint if those throbbing wings touched me. There was something in the bird's senseless movements that revolted me" (Laurence 307). Here we can see that the narrator's choice of words to describe her fear of the bird shows a deeper meaning in terms of what she is afraid of. This goes further when Noreen says, “'A bird in the house means a death in the house'” (307). Once Noreen brings this up, one gets the sense that, even as the narrator reflects on this moment, it wasn't just the bird that scared her, but rather what the bird wanted to say now because of what Noreen said. The bird is no longer just a bird, but rather an omen of death. This idea of ​​death continues throughout the story as the idea that the bird signifies death is now ingrained in Vanessa's head. When her father dies later in the story, we begin to wonder if revisiting the memory of the bird was some sort of foreshadowing of her father's death. Another moment in this story where the choice of words of the narrator, of Vanessa which is the key to the ideas of death in the memories, is the moment where she burns the photo of an unknown woman. While rummaging through her father's office near the end of the story, Vanessa finds an old photo of a woman she has never seen before. She decides to burn this image and in doing so, she says: “Watching the young girl's smile turn into burned paper, I cried for my father as if he had just died” (Laurence 313). It is her choice of wording which leads to saying "now", which shows us the possibility that by burning this photo, this last piece which belonged to her father, she finally leaves him