Is He Dead Yet by Erma Todd

It's the middle of August. It’s very hot and dry. The darkness of night brings no relief from the heat. I'm sitting alone on a stump just outside the light that’s coming from the bedroom window. I didn’t want to be in there. I don’t want to be out here either. The mosquitoes are biting me and the sounds they make as they buzz past me are especially loud. Fear runs up my back bone and causes me to shiver as if I were cold.
The kerosene lamps are making flickering shadows on the walls inside. I can hear my Grandma humming a gospel song, and the squeak of the cane rocking chair as she rocks back and forth. Grandma is rocking my baby brother. He is very near death. His breathing is labored and shallow. There’s no more crying coming from the small blanket she holds. He's much too weak to cry. My Mother is lying across the bed sick with grief and pregnant again.
There’s nothing that can be done. His lungs are filled with pneumonia. This is the middle 1940’s and there is no penicillin. If you get sick with pneumonia and are very young, or very old it's almost a given that you will die struggling for air. This is not the first time my parents have lost a baby to pneumonia. It’s the first time I’ve had to witness it though. I’m five years old and full of questions that have no answers.
No one has time to tell me anything except that he will be dead soon. I pray so hard that he will live. There is a knot of fear in my stomach that won’t let me stand up straight. I’m so afraid that this will happen to me and I will die. I want to run away but there’s no place to run to. I walk slowly toward the open window and call up softly,” Ma, is he dead yet?” “No child he's still with us.” she says. “Okay then” I say, and make my way back to the stump that sits just outside the light, that’s coming from the bedroom window.