"If he had been," Cindy said, "he'd have done so decades ago."
She sighed, then turned and started making her way up the stairs, between the rough improvised handrail and her crutch. Andras wordlessly offered his help, but she shook her head and went up, slowly but under her own steam.
Andras took a few more pictures of the now-empty basement, the bony hand reaching pathetically from the broken floor, then followed her upstairs.