When she had her eyes closed, Evan pulled the hat from behind his back and placed it on her head, tugging the little ear flaps down so that the hat was properly placed there. He smirked a little bit at the visage of her with the fur lined hat on her head, sliding his hands into his pockets as he sat back down on the floor.
"Okay, you can open them now."
Everything is life.
Evan wasn't sure he agreed with that, and his expression probably said that clearly. "Er, I don't think so," he disagreed. "Maybe everything used to be life ten years ago, and I'm not even sure I agree with that. But now? Life is barely existent in these safehouses. Most who aren't dead physically feel dead inside," he pointed out, gesturing to a woman who was always relatively close to the Marchands' little section of Grand Central. Her face was crestfallen; she'd recently lost her son and her husband was in quarantine, she wasn't allowed to see him to know if he was alive or not. Her expression was lifeless. Anyone could see it.
"Not everything is life, Eloise. Sometimes, especially now, you need to look to find life."
It was a flash of the new-old Evan, the bitter Evan who had lost half of his family in one fell swoop. And he wished that Eloise hadn't seen it, but at the same time, he was glad she had. The Evan she'd seen so far was rare now, and she needed to know that.