She put her arms around him, clutched his body to her. "Oh, Robbie," she cried. "You're the only thing I have left in the world. I love you. Don't leave me. Don't ever leave me." She snuggled him closer to her.
Then she looked at his face. She gave a little cry in her throat. She looked closer. Covering his skin were small red sores. What was it she had once read in a book?—Something about radiation poisoning—red sores appearing just before death—
"No, Robbie! Oh, no!"
He looked up at her, his eyes hot and feverish. He tried to talk but the words bubbled on his lips.
She pressed him to her breast and rocked him, shaking her head. "No, Robbie! Don't leave me!..."
She felt the beating of his heart against hers. Slower. His small body twitched. Then grew silent.
... She sat there on the ground, holding the still form in her arms long after the sun had set. The Moon shone down with a silver glow, bathing the child's dead body in its soft light. It shone in the woman's eyes too, glazed eyes, with a dead mind behind them....
"That concludes our lesson for today."