Chapter 20
Dorothy was sitting on a chair by Susan’s bed underneath the window. Quietly, she got up, drew the curtains closer together. She listened to the drone of the generator, the humming of the night insects. Outside, there was nothing but darkness, not a glimmer of light. Susan was sleeping. A quiet slumber, without the usual asthmatic wheeze. Strange, that it had vanished so rapidly, as if the catarrh had been squeezed from her lungs for good. She strained her ears, ever ready for the rasp of her mucous-filled breath. Nothing. Not a murmur.
The room Hannah had given Susan was small, with a window looking out onto a kitchen garden, with the mass of rubber trees in the distance. Dorothy hoped the house would remain lit that night, unlike the previous two. But the sudden cut of elect
