She's honestly surprised that he gave her a straight answer at all. She knows from experience that these kind of stories aren't told to illicit sympathy or pity. That and there's something in the cool way he changes the subject. It's not unfriendly, but there's an unspoken choice to focus on something else.

She gets off the bed and moves to him in order to take the strip of molding. "I can put them over here," she offers, reaching for it. She's feeling strange enough as it is not really being of much help. This at least makes her feel useful.

"My dad was in the Air Force," she says. "Had a couple of close calls in Vietnam." Not that he'd ever talk about them. Not directly. Still, she'd found the letters he'd written her mom one day when she was in high school. The unedited parts of her father and what he'd lost had made her smear the faded ink with her tears. She grins. "When I was little, I used to want to be a fighter pilot because of him. Then of course, I grew up and realized fighter pilots are jerks with death wishes."

She glanced over at him. "Not that I think you're... I just mean in the Air Force guys think they're god's gift because they have a pair of wings."