When Ezra came to us, it forced me to live with the accident after most people had managed to go on. Night and day, I worried about him dying in that room. I tried keeping it my life, just my life. But there was more to all of this than just me. All around me was Ezra, and because of him, all the others like Ezra.

It only took a moment and so many lives had changed forever. Ezra felt guilty because he’d lived on nuclear money. But how about the rest of us? Weren’t we just as guilty?

I had been out late that night with the sheep. The grass, clean and thick; the pasture, patterned with moon shadows. All the chores long done, and just like that, everything had changed. And I didn’t even know it.

If people really understood how big this was, how far it went, how deep, something would be done. Now. To change things. So this could never happen again.

But unless people lived what Ezra’d lived, unless they’d seen what Ezra had seen, how could they understand? How could anyone understand? Ezra’s father hadn’t understood and he knew more about the dark side of nuclear power than most of us.

And the people who understood now, the people who had lived through it, what voice did they have? They hid in shock inside evacuation centers, inside hospitals, inside houses like ours, battling radiation sickness. They’d lost their homes, their money, their power. Who would speak for them?

A plume of smoke hung over the house. I inhaled and sighed. Ezra looked up at the sky, alarmed.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s just Gran burning green wood.”

Ezra’s hand felt large and comfortable around mine. Between us a connection, a belonging. I turned to him.

For a second I saw Gramp there, in the old coat. I caught my breath. But no, this wasn’t Gramp.

This was Ezra Trent, and he was alive. The pressure of his body, warm and solid, next to mine. The clean smell of his hair.

“I need to grab an armload of wood,” I said.

“Can I help?”

I eyed him in his odd assortment of outdoor clothes. His nose and his cheeks ruddy with cold, the mask hanging down around his chin, his shoulders rounded with exhaustion.

“You think you can handle it?”

Ezra made a face. “Sure I can.”

He started gathering logs in his arms.

“Hey. You only need to bring a few.”

He ignored me.

Boys!

While he struggled, I lifted the log carrier off the hook, filling it up so I had nearly twice the load Ezra had.

“That’s cheating,” Ezra said.

Both of us staggered under the weight of our loads. The bulging carrier bumped painfully against my shins as I lugged it across the yard from the woodshed.

When I turned to open the kitchen door, I caught a glimpse of someone out of the corner of my eye. Muncie. She stood at the end of our driveway. Maybe she’d seen Ezra and me outside and had come to investigate.