Twenty — Debra Landwehr Engle

At age fifty-five, Meg's life is too filled with loss for her to remember what magic feels like. All she has left is a yard brimming with plants that are wilting in the scorching Iowa summer -- and a bone-deep feeling that she's through with living.

Meg has something else too: a bottle of mysterious pills, given to her years ago by an empathetic doctor. He promised that they would offer her dying mother a quick, painless end in exactly twenty days. Though her mother never needed them, Meg does. But a strange thing happens after Meg swallows the little green pearls . . .

Now that she's decided to leave this world, Meg is rediscovering the joy in it. She sheds everything she no longer needs -- possessions, regrets, guilt -- and reconnects with those she cares for. Finally confronting the depth of her grief, she's learning that love runs deeper still. But is it too late to choose to stay?