"I meant you could have come to someone sooner," Audrey replied, taking the carafe from the coffee maker and wandering into the bathroom to fill it up. Fortunately, it wasn't like New Orleans or Baton Rouge or Lakewood, they could actually drink the tap water here. And it boiled through the coffee maker anyhow. Though she wouldn't be surprised if she tested it once and found it full of fluoride to dumb them all down and make them pliant and susceptible to the suggestions of their alien overlords. But it was better than the shit that came out of the faucets at home and it made good coffee and that was all she really cared about.
She filled the coffee maker up and flipped it on, then turned one of the chairs to sit backward in it. "My mom hasn't been around for a while either. She's still alive, but she's a dozen states away and I only get to see her twice a year. Sometimes she has the energy to decorate her room and wrap presents, even go out shopping for them herself, other times you can tell the nurses did it. And my dad is hopeless at all of it. His idea of Christmas music is a Cuban orchestra. Which is fun, but I like the classics. Elvis, Sinatra, Bing Crosby. That reminds me of my mom. So I get you. It's never easy to adapt. Which is why I help."
Audrey gave him a smile and got back up again, grabbing her mug and a spare one off the table and filling them both, then sat hers down on their workspace before she handed the other over to Carl, pausing for just a moment to brush his hair away from his bandaged eye. "Also," she added, "one of these days I'm going to ask you whether or not the zombie survival kit I keep in the back of my car is sufficient or not and I expect a brutally honest answer. But until then, let's see what you have and what we can do with some slightly crumpled brown and white tissue paper. Unless you want to get all fancy and let me dye your stuff too. I snagged blue, green, and red food coloring from the kitchens, but as you can see by the state of my hands, I've only used the one so far."
She wiggled her fingers in front of him and gave him a wink before settling back down again.