At the ER, doctors and nurses swarmed her. Patient collapsed at work, given three hits of albuterol, friend says a history of IPF, limited breath sounds both sides. Pneumothorax. Intubate. Then Lauren was floating, and a doctor was hunched over her face, opening her mouth.

Unconsciousness won, but it was okay, she was being helped, and then she was just . . . blank.

There were dreams, strange dreams and sounds of hissing and squeaking. She dreamed she could fly. She dreamed that she was lost and couldn’t find Sarah’s house, so she took an elevator down to a train but remembered that she was married and had to go home to Josh. She thought she was in Hawaii in their beautiful sunset house, but Hawaii smelled like flowers, and it smelled sharp and bitter here. She dreamed that she was in a tree house, but everyone had forgotten about her, and the ladder was gone, so she would have to live there, and there was no bathroom.

She dreamed her father was here, and she wanted to get on a train with him to go to New York City, but he said no.

She woke up, throat aching. She gagged. Josh and Jen were there, telling her it was okay, she was safe, she was getting better. Lauren tried to smile, but fell back asleep.

The next time she woke up, Josh was there, and her mother, looking like hell.

“Hi, honey,” Josh said, leaning forward. “You’re intubated, so don’t try to talk. You have pneumonia, and your lungs collapsed. But you’re better now. Just take it easy.”

“You almost died,” her mother wept. “Oh, honey, you almost died. I couldn’t live if you died! Don’t you know I already lost your father? Please don’t die!”

Josh didn’t take his eyes off her, but his perfect lips twitched, and she knew what he was thinking . . . Shut up, Donna. Or maybe he did actually say it.

She squeezed his hand. “It’s been four days,” he said, and oh, she loved his voice. “They kept you sedated so you could breathe better. But you’re okay.” He kissed her hand. “I love you.”

She fell back asleep.

They extubated that day or the next . . . time was slippery in the hospital. She was exhausted in a way she’d never felt before. Even moving her eyes or smiling took effort.

She had almost died. There was no avoiding that fact. It slept with her there in the hospital, amorphous no longer, but a sharp steel blade. It was real now. She woke up thinking about it, and she took it with her to sleep, and it was there in the foggy places in between.