This snippet uses reported speech (summarising what a character says).
The reported speech is used in the main part of the description and in the detail after the comma.
Mom would shrug and say there was nothing she could do about it, he was her husband.
Dr Fernandez would sigh and say there was nothing he could do about it, Luisa had a virus.
Muzzy took the ocelot down from the shelf and told us he was going back to Annandale, he’d had enough.
The security guards would hang around near the gates and say nobody was allowed in, you had to have a pass.
