“What I want you to do today,” Mrs. Haskins said, “is write to our congressmen. Write to our senators. Tell them what it’s like here now. Right now. Tell them everything. And ask them what they plan to do about it.”

We sat silently at our desks, while Mrs. Haskins put the names of the politicians on the blackboard. None of us seemed to know what to write.

At the end of the period, we filed slowly out of her room, leaving Mrs. Haskins at her desk, staring out the window.

That evening, in the back bedroom, I didn’t even try to read. I just sat, holding the book, gazing at Ezra, willing him to live. My eyes traced over and over the small scar above his eyebrow.

He hadn’t moved in days.

A visiting nurse had come twice. He had Ezra hooked up to an I.V. suspended from a wooden coatrack.

Mrs. Trent showed signs of radiation sickness now too, though not nearly as bad as Ezra. The nurse taught Gran to take care of them both, to change sheets without moving them out of bed, to keep them hydrated. The nurse said Gran was doing everything that could be done. Small comfort.

As sick as Mrs. Trent was, she got a little easier to be with. She listened when I read to Ezra, even if he wasn’t listening.

One night Mrs. Trent talked, her accented voice barely above a whisper.

“I wish my parents had met Ezra,” she said as I adjusted her pillow. “Before all of this.”

I looked down at her, unsure of what to say.

“They are Israeli,” she said. “My parents. They risked their lives to be Israeli. Perhaps I should have brought him to them. They would have been so proud.”

“Maybe you still can bring him,” I said.

Our eyes traveled over Ezra’s laboring body, then returned to each other. I looked away first.

“They did not understand how I could marry out of my faith,” Mrs. Trent said.

I sat on the side of her cot.

“My parents survived the Holocaust. You know the Holocaust?”

I nodded.

“I did not mean to break their hearts,” Mrs. Trent said. “But I fell in love with Ezra’s father. Now I am paying.”

I almost took her in my arms to comfort her. Almost.

Ezra wandered somewhere deep in his illness. His large hands balled up in fists outside the blankets. His curly hair matted where it met the pillow.

While Mrs. Trent slept, I studied the straight line of Ezra’s nose. His lips cracked from loss of fluids. I tried to remember the color of his open eyes.

One night after sitting in silence for an hour, clasping Slake’s Limbo to my chest, I stood to leave.

“I’ve got a lot of homework to do,” I said.

Ezra’s lips moved. He said something.

The next moment, though, he looked as empty as before.

But I’d heard him. He’d spoken.

“What did you say?” I asked. “What is it, Ezra?”