“I can do that for you.” I took the empty jug, puzzled. It was always the younger people, me or Saul, who went for the water. She could not have crawled through the forty, nor managed the weight of the jug when it was full. Why did she think she had to do it now?

“Thank you,” she said when I returned with the jug a minute later. It was heavy and I walked alongside her carrying it. “I want to make soup and I didn’t have enough water for five bowls.”

“Four,” I corrected gently. That we were one less without Mama was like a dagger in my heart.

“Yes, of course, four,” Bubbe agreed. There was a confusion that lingered in her eyes.

A realization came over me. “Bubbe, are you feeling okay?”

“Fine, fine,” she snapped. “I’m an old woman. I forget things. That’s to be expected.”

Uneasiness rose in me. Bubbe had seemed to change during our time in the sewer, growing angrier and sometimes not remembering things. I had attributed it to the terrible conditions and her being ill suited to handle them due to age. But I could see it clearly now: this was more than just the forgetfulness or grumpiness of old age. Bubbe was not well. Illness or age or the madness of the sewer, or maybe some combination of the three, was slowly taking her mind. Perhaps her body, too, I thought, seeing for the first time how frail and wizened she had become, compared to the woman who had navigated the tunnels so heartily the night we first arrived. I wondered if Saul had noticed, and decided not to say anything to him yet. He had already been through so much and more bad news might be more than he could bear.

“Come,” I said gently. I led her back to the entrance of the chamber. “Go inside and rest.” More than once Bubbe had forbidden me from going to the grate because of the risk. I waited for her to stop me. I prayed she would not quarrel or insist that she come, too.

When she had retreated inside, I started down the tunnel once more. I approached the deep basin and climbed down into it. Then I climbed up the far side, quicker this time because I knew how to manage it.

I reached the grate. It was Sunday morning and Ella should have been there. But she was not. Of course. I had missed the previous week and she probably assumed I wasn’t going to come today either. She may well have given up on me entirely by now.

Seeing the daylight beyond the grate, something broke open in me then. Even without Ella, I needed to go to the street, to find Mama and see if she was okay. I could get out on my own.

I reached for the grate, then stopped. It isn’t safe up there, a voice seemed to say. It sounded like Pawel. Pawel, God love him, had kept us here because he thought it was the only way to protect us. But Pawel was gone and my mother would be, too, if I didn’t do something. We had to save ourselves.