Rachel Kushner, "The Hard Crowd"

Mira, who had been transferred from her wheelchair to the couch, sat and fidgeted. She understood no English but was forced to quietly pretend she was listening. I kept smiling at her, and she smiled back. I was desperate to give her something, to promise something. It's very difficult to see a child who has suffered so tremendously. It's basically unbearable. I should give her the ring I was wearing, I thought. But then I saw that it would never fit her fingers, which were very swollen and large despite her young age; her development, after the fire, was thwarted because her bones could not properly grow. I'd give her my earrings, was my next idea, and then I realized that her ears had been burned off in the fire. I felt obscene. I sat and smiled as if my oversized teeth could beam a protective fiction over this poor child, blind in both to truth, that no shallow gesture or petty generosity would make any lasting difference, and that her life was going to be difficult.

- From "We Are Orphans Here"