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The house was already clear, and was in fairly good shape considering the rest of the neighborhood. Lori was wandering the main floor, waiting until they were given the signal that this would be there haven for the night. They had checked every closet and small space, including the dark and musty-smelling basement. She wanted to sit on the overstuffed sofa, but was worried that once she sat it would be difficult to get back up again.
“This is it,” Rick addressed the group that was milling around her, instead of saying anything to her directly. He was doing that a lot lately; ever since she showed how upset she was that Carl had shot Shane. She knew it had to be done, but she was still grasping onto the idea that her son was a child, and that was hard to let go. She rubbed her belly for a moment, nodding with the others, and found a chair to settle in as others move to explore and claim sleeping space.
“Gonna hunt,” Daryl grunted and was the first to disappear from the room. She watched him leave, and then Hershel and Beth followed his example by heading to the kitchen to start checking the cupboards. Maggie and Glenn went up the stairs, probably to pick a bedroom, and Rick took Carl out the front door to set-up a watch with T-Dog. Lori was alone for the first time in what felt like weeks, and she sighed, already tired of sitting.
This was a nice house, gorgeous in fact. The kind of house she dreamt of having when they were first starting out. She and Rick had lived fairly well, and they did have a nice house, but they would never have had a house this big with so many things. The clutter would have driven them crazy, and the electric bill from all of the now-useless electronics would have been atrocious. It would have been comfortable to have two or three children living here though, and she could picture play-dates with neighbor children, birthday and pool parties, and even dinner parties for their adult friends.
She stood, carefully, and walked around the edge of the room. There were knick-knacks everywhere and she picked up a hand-blown glass elephant from the mantel and looked at it for several seconds. It was cute and modern and would have cost more than twenty dollars before the world fell apart. Lori dropped it on the brick of the fireplace and watched it shatter. It had been pretty and now it looked like she was feeling.
Beth stuck her head back into the room, “Are you okay?”
“Sorry, I knocked something off a shelf, it’s fine.” Lori brushed the shards of glass with the toe of her boot, “I’m good.”
Beth studied her for a moment, “We found some bottled water and tea, and there is some canned food. Why don’t you come in here and have something to drink while we sort through it all?”
Lori glanced around the room again before nodding, “Sure, that sounds great. Thank you, Beth.”