Josh was given an electrolyte drink, made to sit with an ice pack on his head, then released with a warning from the surly medic. Josh thanked the person who’d loaned him the chair (another nice, decent person), then cut across a block to get to the finish line back on PC’s campus.

“There you are!” Jen exclaimed. “Everything okay? We heard someone fainted!”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just took it slow. The heat, you know?”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. It seemed to be a thing of hers.

His mom, Ben, Sumi and Donna appeared; Donna had called his mother, they said, and the Kims tagged along, too. The Kims were lugging coolers and two picnic baskets, never ones to skimp on food. They found a spot under a tree and ate, and Josh felt significantly better. Octavia, who finally had learned to walk, toddled around, anointing everyone with drooly kisses and buttercups. In the distance, the white-robed priests strolled the campus, and Pebbles ran off to intercept a Frisbee.

“You doing all right, son?” Ben asked, sitting next to him.

“Yeah.”

“Missing your wife, of course.”

Josh nodded. Ben put his arm around his shoulders.

“She was a flower,” the older man said.

“She was a whole field of flowers,” he said, and Ben nodded.

Neither said anything else, and Josh was grateful for the silence and the company. Ben was the only one who could pull that off. Silence was good. Silence let him imagine his wife here, playing with the kids, chasing them around, giving piggyback rides. Well, of course she’d been too weak for that. But in his mind, she was healthy, and the kids begged for more, and she’d chase them and roar and swoop them up in her arms until she flopped down on the grass next to him. She’d put her head in his lap, maybe, and he would feel real again. Not this fake version of himself, the ghost of Lauren’s husband.

But once, he had been Lauren’s husband. He was proud of that. The two feelings would have to make peace.

“I should get going,” he said. He stood up, helped Ben to his feet and gave him a brief hug.

He was the first to leave, but the urge to get home was strong. He stood up, fist-bumped Sebastian and then Octavia and steeled himself for the goodbye rounds.

“I left something under your door,” Sarah said. “I would’ve brought it if I’d known you were coming.” The eyebrow lifted again.

A letter. A Lauren letter. God, he needed that today. So much.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll text you about getting together.”

He said his goodbyes and headed out. As he walked away, he felt his shoulders drop and the tension leave his legs.