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So it was with Brod, who knew the the Kolker's days were numbered, and so began her grieving long before he died. She wore rent black clothes and sat close to the ground on a wooden stool. She even recited the Mourner's Kaddish loud enough even for Safran to hear. There are only weeks left, she thought. Days. Although she never cried tears, she wailed and wailed in dry heaves. (Which could not have been good for my great-great-great-great-grandfather--conceived through the hole--who was eight months heavy in her stomach.) And then, in one of his moments of mental clarity, Shalom-then-Kolker-now-Safran called to her through the wall: I'm still here, you know. You promised you'd pretend to love me until I died, and instead you're pretending I'm dead.
It's true, Brod thought. I'm breaking my promise.
So they strung their minutes like pearls on an hour-string. Neither slept. They stood vigil with their cheeks against the pine divide, passing notes through the hole like schoolchildren, passing vulgarities, blown kisses, blasphemous hollers and songs.

-Jonathon Safran Foer
Everything Is Illuminated

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