I stared to the side. It was a policy of mine not to meet the eyes of the other kids. My head was a boulder that received and transmitted nothing.

I pretended to be fascinated by the four-paneled painting on the wall called Each Day Life Begins Anew, as if I didn’t know it by heart. The four panels represented the seasons. Each girl started in one season and swung her feet into the next, except for the fall panel, where the swing was empty and run aground in mud. The last girl swung her yellow boots into a violet-colored winter, which proved only one thing—big deal!—that this so-called artist had studied the color chart.

“Do you like that picture?” The boy was as hoarse as an old man.

“Not very much.”

“Why not?”

“Look at how crooked the swings are! I could do better than that. Her hands are like mittens.”

“I think it’s pretty,” he said. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“I’m ten. What’s your name?”

“Maddy.”

“Is that a real name?”

“Of course it’s a real name! What’s yours?”

“Torrence.”

“Don’t tell me that’s a real name?”

He ducked and covered his grin with both hands. Kids that age, their teeth are too big for their mouths. His mother glanced up and straight down again.

“They said I’d be okay if I made it to three years. I was so close! I only had two months to go. Then it came back. Are you getting chemo?”

I nodded.

“What do you have?”

“Cancer of the cells that are supposed to protect me.” He wouldn’t appreciate the irony. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Torrence glanced sideways. “That’s my sister.”

So that was why she looked so young and bored. To head off the question, I volunteered: “I’m an only child,” just as my mother took her seat, coffee in one hand and a hot chocolate for me in the other. “That’s my mother.”

The women exchanged guarded smiles and returned to their reading.

He held up his phone. “Summer gave me an iPod Touch. So I could play Angry Birds in the car.”

I licked the whipped cream off the top of my drink.

“Do you know what Angry Birds is?”

“A game where these birds try to kill pigs who are stealing their eggs.”

He pointed to a purple wristband he was wearing. “This is for Team Summer. I loved Summer. She died.”

“Oh.”

Torrence gripped the edge of his seat and swung his legs. “Can I give you something?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s how it works. Once you get a gift, you can give one to another kid with cancer. To cheer them up. What do you want?”

“Nothing,” I said.

His look bordered on the scornful. “You must want something.”

“Torrence,” said his sister, warningly. “You know it has to be a surprise.”