"Yeah," she says, and she looks away, her voice still sort of weird. "There's a dinner thing tomorrow. You should come help." She looks back at him, and her eyes are red-rimmed and she's a mess, but she's managed to shift the focus away from her. "It'd be good, probably. Lord knows somebody's got to make things better around here."

And yeah, she's holding herself together with her fingernails, but she's done it, she's managed to stop crying, to stop herself from being a wreck. "So you'll help, right?"