“You won’t find any radiation there,” Ezra said in disgust.

“You don’t know how dangerous these puppies can be,” I said. “You think they’re okay and then they go and pee radiation all over you.”

“There’s no radiation in that dog,” Ezra said.

“Maybe you’re right. Doesn’t seem to be any radiation in this whole kitchen. You could take off that mask if you wanted. Eat some of these pancakes I saved for you.” I waved the detector over the plate. “See, they’re clean.”

“No, thanks.”

Ezra placed Gramp’s canes across his lap. He ran his hand up and down the surface of the table. “I’ll just leave the mask on. I’m not too hungry right now anyway.”

I sat across from Ezra at the kitchen table. I’d never sat at this table with a boy before. I’d never even seen Ezra in a chair. It felt funny, dancey sort of, having him across from me like that. I guess I smiled.

Ezra spread his large hands out, leaned toward me, and smiled back.

“Welcome to the land of the living, Ezra Trent,” I said, stroking the puppy in my lap.

A cloud passed over his face, sudden. Then it was gone.

“Sure I can’t get you something to eat?”

Ezra looked around the kitchen again, this time without fear or suspicion. The woodstove radiated waves of heat. Ezra studied the wood box, the old round-edged refrigerator, the sinks stained orange with minerals. He turned back to me and reached toward the dog.

“What’s the matter? Afraid he’ll pee on me?” I asked.

“Serve you right if he did,” Ezra answered.

Gran came in just then, letting in a blast of cold wind, stomping snow off her boots.

“Nyle. I’ll need your help getting that pair of ewes over to Aunt May and Uncle Lemmy’s. Oh, and bring the puppy out too. He can go down in the front pasture now.”

Ezra rose to his feet, leaning on the canes. He towered over Gran. “I’ll head back to my room,” he said. The mask puffed in and out as he spoke.

Gran waited until Ezra made his way out of the kitchen before she came to stand beside me.

Together we watched Ezra struggle on Gramp’s canes until he turned the corner and disappeared into his room.

Sixteen

Aunt May and Uncle Lemmy owned a large dairy farm on Old Putney Road. At least it used to be a dairy farm.

Now it was nothing.

I loved this farm once, with its hundreds of black-and-white Holsteins. When you drove by, depending on the time of day, the cows would be moving across the pasture, or stopping to graze, or swishing their tails at flies. Sometimes they stood under the tin roof of the feeding sheds, or lumbered through the tunnel Aunt May and Uncle Lemmy had dug under the road. At milking time they knew to cross back toward the barns.

No trace of the cows remained. The government claimed the land around Uncle Lemmy’s farm escaped fallout, but their reports lied. Everything had the taint of contamination here—the cows, their milk, the grass they ate. The emergency people gave Uncle Lemmy his radiation detector. He could read the levels.