Meanwhile, Josh was . . . amazing. Calm, caring, funny and, yes, sometimes sad. The punching bag was used three or four nights a week as a proactive measure, and when he came up, sweaty, his hands wrapped, his mood light, she was proud of them both. He got better at talking about those pesky feelings—she did wonder if she was the first person who’d helped him with that, since she suspected Steph had simply told him yes, life could be unfair, next question please? The wall-punching incident had loosened something in him.

“I was thinking about the Great Beyond,” she said one night over a vegetarian dinner so loaded with garlic it had cleared out her sinuses. She tried to keep her voice light, but his head snapped up.

“Are you feeling okay these days?”

“Yes! I feel great today.” She cleared her throat. “When my dad died, I thought about it a lot, that’s all. And . . . I’ve been thinking about it again.”

“I don’t want you to think about it.”

She gave him a look.

“Right. Okay. Tell me more.”

She loved him so much. “Well, I think it must be this amalgamation of everything you’ve ever loved and wanted to do. Like . . . you get to be an eagle. Or a baby giraffe.”

“Or a shark.”

“No one wants to be a shark, Josh.”

“Why? No fear, do whatever you want, eat whatever you want . . .” He attempted a smile.

“Kill seals and unsuspecting swimmers? No. There are no sharks in the Great Beyond, Joshua.” She pretended to scowl.

“Okay. Well, what else is there?”

“You get to see all the people you love who’ve died. Obviously. I’ve got my dad, my grandparents, my great-aunt Mimi. A boy in fourth grade who had leukemia. Peter. We sat on the bus together.” She hadn’t thought of him in years. Poor little Peter. They’d held hands once. Her eyes stung.

“What else is in the Great Beyond?” Josh asked. “Food, I imagine.”

“A make-your-own-sundae bar for sure.”

“How about that sushi place we went to in Hawaii? That’s worthy of the GB.”

She smiled, feeling her shoulders drop a little. Her ending was part of their life now. And she was scared . . . not so much of dying herself, but of making everyone she loved so sad. And yes, of course of dying. Dying badly, that was. Would she go out gasping with air hunger, that wretched term? Clawing at the sheets? Or intubated and drugged so she couldn’t say some profoundly moving last words?

“I really believe my dad will be there at the end,” she said, and then she did cry.

Josh came over and picked her up and held her on his lap. He kissed her cheek and smoothed her hair and said, “Don’t be such a loser, babe,” and she sputtered in surprise, then laughed.

Thank God for him. Thank God.