Christine entered the kitchen from the living room as Vivian swept broken dishes, cups, and drinking glasses into a pile on the kitchen floor.
“Do me a favor, would you, please?” Vivian said. “Get the brush and dustpan from that little utility closet next to the drop-down ironing board over there and sweep that little bit up for me.”
“Okay,” Christine said.
“By the way, I shut off the gas.”
“That’s good,” Christine said. She swept broken scraps into the dustpan.
“I counted three broken windows,” Vivian said, “but I haven’t checked all of them. I’ll look at the others right now.”
Christine nodded as she dumped the fragmented contents into the trash bin nearby.
Vivian left the kitchen to check the rest of the windows.
“Well,” Vivian said when she returned, “more than half of the windows are either cracked or broken and there are some cosmetic cracks on some of the walls, but that’s about it. Those things are easily fixed, anyway.”
“You know,” Christine said, “when I really think about it, it seems I could’ve sworn I heard a very loud thud of some sort coming from above the guest room.”
“You mean the room above yours in the west wing?”
“Yeah, and I’m directly beneath it. It was loud. It scared me because I literally felt the impact. I don’t know what to make of it. Even fragments of plaster fell from the ceiling.”
“Hmm . . . I can’t imagine what that could’ve been.”
Christine shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”