The difference in their reactions when she grabs a hold is maybe the purest study in individual character, and a smile that she can't contain or even recognize comes on to assault her like an irresistible force. She's certain she'll win Sarge over again just like she did when she was small, and she already knows that the less she fusses about it, the easier it will be to worm her way in. With her brother - well, that's more complicated by far, but his acceptance of her affection warms her, and she squeezes his arm while he leads them on. "Well I'll need to see the lawn ornament collection when we do our tour," she says, light in response to Sarge's grumbles.
Then they get to the trailer.
She has thought, multiple times already today since the minute she walked in and saw who the Dog King is, that the truth of things has hit her, that the realization that this is real has bowled her over for the last time and she can start to settle into it. When she steps through the door of that trailer, it happens all over again.
Maybe it's the familiarity of trailer living - she hasn't stepped foot into one of these things since she packed up a bag and took off at sixteen - or maybe it's the fact that it looks so much like him in here and it even smells like him, cologne and booze and man and dust. Maybe it's how damn pleased he looks, or the fact that there are no sheets on the bed because he probably doesn't even know how beds actually are supposed to work.
It's probably a combination of all of those things that pick Adelaide right up, hover her in the air kind of out of body, and then slam her right back into the ground, knocking the wind from her lungs. She feels like she's been awake for years, and she's just stepped into a favorite dream - like that Dorothy she imagined moments before when she steps into Oz and suddenly there is color.
She's still standing stock still a couple of paces inside the door by the time Sarge is settled in a chair but then she moves, jelly-legged, to sink down onto Rodeo's built-in sofa and she puts her head between her knees.