The Last Pile of Leaves — R.W. Clinger

Because of immediate cancer, Livy Banks has six months to live. She holds an empty, yellow slip of notebook paper in one hand. The paper allows her to write a list of how her life will end... What would you write on the list? Whom would you visit? How would you learn to love those around you in such a short period of time? Where would you go from there? Livy travels to West End, a city along Lake Erie. She faces her mother for the very first time about failure and loss with their unshared relationship. As a mother and daughter bond unravels, Livy escapes to The Araby, a West End hotel, for repair. Once at The Araby, becoming sick, she is compelled to then complete relationships with three childhood friends: one who disregards her, a second who she befriends again, and a third she falls in love with. As Livy's travels whisk her into a blizzard of emotions, her husband Cole Banks faces three realities of his own: the loss of his wife, the will to move on, and The Last Pile of Leaves that will never be raked again.