“Josh,” she said as gently as she could, “if you’re sad for the rest of my however-long life, I won’t be able to stand it. I’ll die of a broken heart before I die from this stupid lung thing. I need you to be with me, not trying to cure me.” She started crying in earnest now and had to cough. “I’m scared, and I don’t want to be, and I can’t be brave without you. I want to be like that little girl. I want to smile on my last days. I want to love the rest of my life, and I can’t, Josh, I can’t if you’re not right here with me.”

“Oh, honey, I am. I’m here.” He got into bed with her and held her tight, her tears soaking into his shirt as she cried.

She didn’t want him desperate and working to find a cure, the days sliding past as he Googled and researched and called people at Stanford and tried to invent something that would Roto-Rooter her lungs. Because in the end, she would still die. She knew that now. And if she only had a little while left, be it months or years or even a miraculous decade, she needed him to be here. Present. Happy to be married to her.

“I understand,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ll do whatever you want. Be however you want.”

“I only want you.”

He raised his head, and his eyes were so sad. “I only want you, too,” he whispered.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know, honey.” The sadness, the grief, the fear were suddenly crushing. He gathered her in his arms and held her so close.

That little girl would never have this.

Lauren was the lucky one.

“Think of what a hot widower you’ll make,” she whispered.

And, because he was the best husband ever, because he could read her so completely, he said, “I think I might have a chance at Beyoncé.”

THE HOSPITALIZATION CHANGED her. Being able to admit that her life could end at any minute, having been that close to death, and having Josh understand where she was—it triggered something unexpectedly joyful. She beamed at her mother when Donna came to visit, let her nephew push the buttons to raise and lower her bed, looked at Sarah’s matches on OkCupid and offered advice, sent Darius to get her and Jen a double order of cheeseburger sliders from Harry’s. “I’m also eating for two, in solidarity,” Lauren told him. And later, when Josh was lying next to her in her hospital bed, she let her hands wander.

Life was good. Life was here, and she was in it. She was with the living, and she was damn lucky.

She didn’t see the little girl again. Didn’t know her name to ask after her.