Liesel

"They told us fifty-fifty." Sheila whispers to me in the kitchen. Standing in my socks, I try not to cry. I smile and nod my head pretending to myself and to her that this information, this scientific statistic given to them by an oncologist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is not news to me.


"She may not be with us next year."

Liesel's mother said to the two of them the night before, Sheila tells me. "We don't want to think or talk about that now." I imagine they were smiling when they said this, the way they do when they don't feel like smiling.

Across the kitchen, Liesel leans against the sink, laughing with Scott. No matter which fifty of the fifty-fifty she is given, I that know Liesel's homemade strawberry ice cream heart will never expire and everyone lucky enough to love and be loved by her will always have a bowl half-full in their hands.