I picture us sitting in a car at an intersection in the middle of the night. The world feels empty like right after a storm ends. The darkness presses down on us, and we see only a red stoplight blinking: on, off, on, off, on, off. We can’t turn the car around and go back where we were, but we can’t seem to move forward either. The red light taunts us: stop, go, stop, go, stop, go. But we remain stuck. I crack the window for fresh air.

Better Off Bald chronicles my sister Adrienne’s 147-day battle with liver cancer; the book also shows how I reared Adrienne from the time she was eight until she died at the age of fifteen. For more information about primary liver cancer, go to Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association.