Answer:
A conditional mood is the form of a verb which is used to make requests or expression of under what condition something would happen. It uses helping or auxiliary verbs such as, might, would, should and could. Sometimes it is connected to a clause which is in the subjunctive mood.
I am not completely sure, but I would say that being the last of a long line of speakers refers to temporal context. Since you are last, it means that a long time will pass since it is your turn.
The irony is that Tom is more educated then Huck, but makes it very complicated to free Jim, instead of doing it the simple way.
The correct answer to this open question is the following.
You did not mention the book or the text you are referring to. Without information is difficult to know what you are talking about.
However, trying to help you we did some deep research and can comment on the following general terms.
First, you are referring to the book called "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Teachers' Guide," written by Rebecca Skloot, a science writer that has published many interesting articles on this subject in prestigious slots such as the New York Times magazine.
The challenges that Skloot faced in communicating with Deborah was Deborah's personality and resistance to talk with Kloot. Deborah was a difficult research subject herself because she did not trust Kloot and her research. Deborah is the daughter of Henrietta, and for 20 years never knew about the existence of her mother's cells and that medical and research laboratories were investing millions of dollars in developing medicines. That is why Deborah showed resistance to talk to Skloot. She did not have a clear idea about what has happened with the cells of her mother and the purpose of the research.
If you don't you will look un-professional which is not what you want.