Properly addressing a sympathy card to Tutor Time, or to any of the rebuilding businesses in the area, might be difficult. The owner would pass it on to the day care providers, who would pass it on to the children, who couldn’t read it, though they might chew on it. Still, walking around the facility — among the mud- and dust-covered playground equipment and unpainted sheetrock — it seems certain that someone has taken a hit. Perhaps the answer is that we all have.

“This is our second home,” said Viggiano. “Some of the girls and I spend more time here than we do in our real homes. But some of our teachers, you know, come from Island Park, Oceanside, the Rockaways. They’re out of their first and second homes.”

In a tragedy that strikes so many, it’s all too easy to find someone more unlucky. Meanwhile, as Fedner says, “The bills keep coming in.”

The journey to recovery is a multifaceted story with no end in sight, and the Heralds are chronicling all aspects of the rebuilding effort in a series of weekly articles with a common theme, South Shore Rising.