"I'm very sorry," Simmons says, feeling as if the weight of empathy and sadness is in the small lines around her eyes, stress marks that she'd swear up and down didn't exist until only weeks ago. "I think we're all starting to doubt the things we're told," she confesses, hoping to bring something of a brighter tone to all this. "When the world around us isn't so easy to understand, doubt is the only reasonable safe harbour."