Iron Lung

Ella sits so close that I can see her in the little round mirror hanging at a diagonal above my face.

Ella, sister of flesh and blood.

Ella can drop by the hospital whenever she pleases, and when she’s free from school she buys me pears and fizzy drinks, bags full of comic books and Tampax. Then she smuggles my bloody tampons out again so the nurses won’t see them. I’m ashamed of the blood. Ella comes every day. I’ll always take care of you, she tells me, but can I count on that?

In the first days of the sickness, when