"Anytime, sir," she says, and even though he said that they're fine, she goes about straightening up the house anyway. It's a great comfort when you don't look around and have constant reminders of the last disaster that happened. When you can wake up and find everything in order.

Setting the broken things into a broken things pile on the kitchen counter, where they can decide later whether they want to try to patch it up or toss it out, putting the other things where she thinks they ought to go, fingers nimbly working, and bending and picking up, and placing down. "It was nothing, really, anyone else woulda done the same." Vicky, ever the southern gentleman, doesn't want to accept credit for what she sees as plain old fashioned politeness. Doing the right thing. Helping someone she loves.