After the song has finished, Marion gets out a lighter, sticks the twelve candles into the tart, and lights them. I also have a sparkler shaped like the figure 12. It tingles and sparkles and makes crackling noises as if a star has fallen into the room.

Maddie’s present is still lying, fully wrapped, on the table.

“Let’s sing something else,” Nurse Marion says, laughing, her ginger curls clinging to her lovely, kindly face.

“Let’s sing ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow,’ ” Benny suggests.

So we sing and Nurse Marion turns off the bright ceiling light, leaving only the tart with twelve candles on it, the crackling of a little sparkler, the three of us, and Maddie. That’s how we celebrate her twelfth birthday.

“You have to blow them out, Maddie,” I whisper when we’ve finished singing the song and hold up my apple tart with the little flame on top in front of her face. “And make a wish. Wish hard, and then it’ll come true.”

For one crazy instant I think I glimpse the fleeing raven and its black feathers swooping across her eyes. But she doesn’t blow out the candles, of course she doesn’t. Her ventilator is breathing for her, but her pulse does seem to accelerate slightly.

“Okay,” I say, surprised by my profound, exhausted disappointment. “Well, in that case I’ll blow them out for you and make a wish.”

I fill my lungs and as I blow out the candles, I reflect that I’d like to argue with Maddie one day—argue and then make up. I can’t imagine anything more wonderful than having her glare at me and then hugging her until she has to laugh.

She doesn’t look at me, though. Not even her greatest wish has been sufficient to bring her back.

I place the two oak leaves on the table beside her bed.

DAY THIRTY-EIGHT

Henri

Day breaks with mild sunshine, which gently tempts me from sleep.

I see Eddie dip her forefinger into the pan of milk on the stove to test if it is hot enough for her coffee. She’s been doing this for so long that it’s now completely automatic. She would do it even if the milk were already boiling.

She turns, and I hold her gaze, her bright wintry eyes. Her bare legs below her shirt, her furrowed brow, and her mouth as she blows on the milk. I never want to be without her.

I can feel myself sliding into trouble, as if the bed were a grassy slope. I feel such an overwhelming urge to throw back the covers and invite her to lie down beside me with her back against my tummy that I say to her, quite simply, “Come!”