“Yes.”
“Lie better.”
“It may be repaired with scavenged parts if the compressor housing remains intact.”
She grunts. “That was almost cheerful.”
I stand, and my gaze catches on the ruined pastries scattered across the floor. Cinnamon rolls trampled flat. Lemon tarts smeared into tile. Bread torn open like bodies.
This should not feel like desecration.
It does.
Evie begins sweeping again. The motion is too brisk, too controlled, too determined to keep grief busy. I cross back to her and take the broom from her hands.
“I can clean,” she says.
“You can sit.”
“I’m not sitting.”
“You are shaking.”
“So is the whole building when you walk.”
“That is not relevant.”
“It is a little relevant.”
“Evie.”
She closes her eyes for a second. Her breath trembles. When she opens them, the tears are closer.
“I can’t sit,” she whispers.
The room around us fades again. “Why?”
“Because if I sit, I’m going to feel it.”
I do not know what to do with that. Combat gives a man clarity. Enemy here. Civilian there. Wound here. Exit there. But this is not combat. This is Evie standing in the ruins of the one warm place she has carved out of a cold neighborhood, asking her body to keep moving so her heart does not have time to break.
I set the broom aside.
“What do you need?”
She blinks up at me, startled. “What?”
“What do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I will think.” I look around the bakery. “Darlene, do you have tarps?”
“In the storage closet. Left side. Don’t touch the green bin unless you want emotional damage and possibly mouse droppings.”
