This would be a process, she realized. There’d be curves and veers and long straight stretches, and that was normal. They got to be scared and furious and happy and grateful, and sometimes they could be all those things at the same time.

She climbed off his lap and handed him a tissue, then blew her own nose. They looked at each other, raw and exhausted. “Is there a way to head that off at the pass?” she asked. “You know. To save our walls?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I have techniques. Visualizations, distractions. Creative destruction.”

“Oh, I like that term. Like you go out and chop down a tree?”

“Yeah. Or hitting a punching bag. Ben had one in his basement for me.”

“Guess what you’re getting for a birthday present?”

“Is it a punching bag?” He smiled, looking older than his years, and her broken heart broke a little more.

“It is! How did you know?” She stood up, pulled him to his feet and hugged him. “I’m starving. I’m going to make us both omelets.”

He looked at her a long minute. “Are we okay? Do you forgive me?”

“Oh, Josh. Yes, honey.”

“Don’t ever mention us separating again. Okay?”

“Okay.” Then Pebbles pushed between them, and they smiled, and Josh picked her up and kissed her head.

THE CHANGES CREPT in. The diagnosis had been surreal and amorphic at first. But reality was making itself at home, and Josh’s red-out . . . it drove everything home.

There had to be time for grief and anger laced together with all that they did have, and that panoply of emotion made Lauren feel more real. She didn’t always have to be Princess Butterflies and Rainbows, and she didn’t have to be sobbing on the floor. Just because she was terminal didn’t take away from the fact that she was also a regular person.

There were the new realities of IPF. She learned to plan her day carefully, so as not to expend too much energy and have a setback. She and Josh bought a lovely teak bench for the shower, and a grab bar, in case she got dizzy or weak. Josh got her a beautiful leather bag to hold her portable oxygen, which she didn’t need every day . . . but it was nice that she had a bag that didn’t yell medical device even if she often had a plastic cannula in her nose.