“Oh Libby,” Nonny said. She put a hand on my knee. “Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say, or sometimes there are too many things to say. I know you always have fifty questions for everyone, and everything, and maybe it’s hard to know what to say because there’s so much.”

I nodded.

“When that happens, the trick is sort of asking them the question in my mind. I ask one or maybe even all fifty of the questions that you probably have, but I only ask them silently, in my head, to the other person.”

So it was like talking to my scientist friends in my head! Talking to them silently and so never saying the wrong thing because the stars and the universe helped you know the right words. This was exactly the same but with real-life people.

“So it’s asking the exactly right question because it’s only in your head!” I said. “A Silent Question!”

“Silent Question. I like that,” Nonny said, laughing. “That’s perfect. And after I ask a Silent Question then yes, exactly, it’s almost like the universe itself picks the very best of all the things I’m silently asking or saying in my head, and then the other person keeps talking like I’ve said or asked just the right thing. Like I’m really hearing them, really listening. My staying silent lets the other person say only the things they want to.”

It was like the last puzzle piece in a super-hard thousand-piece Eiffel Tower puzzle clicked into place in my brain. There were silent conversations going on everywhere, between two people, between a person and the universe. And those conversations went two ways. I knew they did, because it had happened to me before. I’ve made deals with the universe, and with my scientist friends. I talked to them and the universe answered back.

A couple of years ago my mom came back from the doctor looking pale and scared. She and Dad talked for a long time and then brought Nonny and me out to the couch.

Here’s a big doctor word for you: melanoma.

“They found skin cancer,” Mom said. “I’m not going to … to lie to you guys, it’s a pretty rare kind. They think we caught it in time, though. They said they’re ninety-percent sure it’s going to be fine.”

When it comes to your mom, the only percent fine you want to hear is one-hundred.

They took a long, football-shaped chunk of skin off my mom’s shoulder, then sewed it up into a long scar. They also took a few of her lymph nodes.

When Mom went in for surgery, you can bet I talked to the universe.

I talked to the universe for hours and hours. To Rosalind Franklin, specifically, because she was the one I thought could help. She knew about genetics, about cells. So I made a deal with Rosalind Franklin, and you know what? A month later, Mom was dancing around the bakery, covered in flour.