Ezra hadn’t moved. He lay on his back, his head pressed deep into the feather pillow.

His eyes had an unusual shape, something I hadn’t seen in the dark last night. They drooped down at the sides. It made his face different from any I had seen before. Above one eyebrow was a small crescent-shaped scar.

There was a smell of illness in the room, the old smell that had been there when Gramp died, when my mother died. Ezra’s large hands lay on top of the quilt. He wore what looked like Gramp’s old pajamas.

Caleb dozed beside the door.

I knelt down and stroked the dog’s side.

Lifting his head, Caleb dragged a wet tongue over my hand, then flopped back down, sighed, and went to sleep again.

Mrs. Trent’s eyes rested a moment on Ezra before she left the room.

A night-light glowed in the wall outlet. The light from the hallway crept across the oval rug. The curtain remained tightly shut.

“Hi,” I said. “Ezra?”

Ezra didn’t move, except for the labored rise and fall of his chest as he struggled to breathe.

I should just leave him to die in peace.

But Gran wanted me to stay. Mrs. Trent wanted me to stay.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I opened the book and started reading aloud by the light from the hallway.

After a few moments Ezra turned his head toward me and opened his eyes.

He blinked, stared, trying, I think, to bring me into focus.

“I’m Nyle Sumner,” I said. “You’re in my house.”

Ezra nodded. It looked as if it hurt him to move. He shut his eyes again.

I sat anxiously in the flowered chair, trying not to breathe too deeply. I still worried about catching the radiation from him, even though Gran said I couldn’t.

“Do you know this book?” I asked.

Ezra kept his eyes closed. His breathing sounded like the crunch of feet over gravel. He moved his legs fitfully under the blanket. Every now and then a noise escaped from him, a small whimper.

“It’s a good book,” I said. I waited a moment. “Should I read some more to you? Should I start over?”

I started again, keeping my voice low, afraid to make too much noise on the edge of Ezra’s illness.

Every now and then his eyes came open. He stared at a spot to the left of my foot, where Caleb had crept inside the room.

But he didn’t look at me again.

Finally I heard Gran clanging around in the kitchen. I smelled the warm, full aroma of bread baking. Mrs. Trent came softly down the hall and motioned with her straight back and her manicured hand for me to leave.

“Thank you,” she said, dismissing me.

She walked straight into the room, straight past me, over to Ezra, smoothing his curls back from his eyes. She touched her lips to his forehead.

I watched from the doorway as Mrs. Trent wrung out a washcloth and placed it over Ezra’s brow. She whispered what sounded like a prayer in a language I didn’t know. Ezra and his mother huddled together, alone in the dark country of his illness.