Stranger at my doctor’s office asked what I have. Her reaction: “Oh, my God, my cousin’s other grandfather? He had the same thing. It was awful. He wasted down to nothing. He didn’t even look human in the end. He reeked of death.”

Me: “That’s so reassuring. Thank you.”

Some dude on a conference call, asking about my cannula: “Well, we’re all dying, really. I could get hit by a bus crossing the street!” How many people actually die this way? Are bus drivers filled with road rage? Why not say “car” or “dump truck”? Poor bus drivers get a bad rap.

Lady in post office when I am innocently mailing a package: “I see that you’re on oxygen. Are you sick?”

Me: “No, I just like the buzz.”

Her: “Can I hug you?’

Me: “No.”

Her: “Let me hug you.”

Me: “You touch me, and I’ll punch you.”

She and Sarah laughed till they cried over that one, and it became their catchphrase . . . let me hug you. Never failed to make them giggle. Asmaa, who was sweeter than both of them put together, never got the joke and hugged Lauren every time she heard the line, which just made it funnier.

So she had a terminal condition. Didn’t everyone? Everyone would die, after all. Lauren’s death was just a little more real than getting hit by a bus.

She could live with that. She was living with that. She didn’t have much choice.

17

Joshua

Month five

July

HE’D STARTED WORKING again, almost every day. Better to do something that might help someone somewhere than watch television. It wasn’t easy to concentrate, and his brain would play small, cruel tricks on him. If he finished this phase of the design or read an article about that subject, Lauren would come back. If he could work for an hour, Lauren would come back. If he was just good enough, time would flow backward, and Lauren would be back. Sometimes he thought he heard her at the door or in the kitchen, and he spooled out the notion. Yes, she was back. No, it wasn’t the AC clicking on. It was his wife. The past four and a half months had been a bad, excruciatingly detailed dream.

One night, he’d set out her favorite mug next to his. Just to see them together again. Just to pretend for a few seconds that she’d be in this kitchen once more. Even if it was her ghost—and he didn’t believe in ghosts. Anything. Anything from her.

There was nothing.