“It’s all right,” she said.
People say those words in very different ways.
Sometimes they mean them.
Sometimes they are trying to convince you not to ask another question because the answer is humiliating.
This was the second kind.
I had already seen enough to understand most of the answer anyway.The refrigerator held a jug of water and a box of baking soda.
The house was so cold I could still see faint wisps of steam rising from the pizza she had ordered.
A Ziploc bag of pennies and nickels sat beside her chair because she had planned to pay $14.50 for the first hot meal she had eaten in who knew how long.