Sometimes, when they were married, they’d have the same idea at the same time. He’d call her from the market and say, “I was thinking of making chicken Parmesan for dinner,” and she’d squeal and say, “I was literally texting you this very minute, asking if you’d make chicken Parm!” Or sometimes he’d say, “Turn on the subtitles, okay?” at the very second she was reaching for the remote to do just that.

“Soon,” she once said, before her diagnosis, “we won’t even need words to communicate.” He liked that idea.

It was the same today. “Great minds think alike, honey,” he said aloud, his voice husky.

No one would ever know him the way she had.

But they could know him a little. After all, he was the man who had won Lauren Carlisle’s heart. The luckiest guy in the world.

20

Joshua

Month seven

September

THEY WERE IN Hawaii, but it was the Providence apartment, or maybe it was the Cape house they’d rented. At any rate, they were by the ocean, and it was sunny and beautiful, and he could hear the gentle roar of the ocean. The breeze skimmed their skin, blowing Lauren’s hair against his neck. She was laughing, leading him into the bedroom, wearing a filmy white nightgown, barefoot, no makeup, that cute little tummy, sexy as hell.

He was kissing her again, actually kissing her. She was real, she was back, she was his again. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said.

“Of course I’m here, silly,” she said, and her voice . . . he’d forgotten how much he loved the sound of her voice, huskier than when they first met, but so beautiful.

“You came back.”

“I’ll always come back, honey.” Then she pulled him closer and slid his shirt off his shoulders, unbuckled his belt and pulled him onto her, falling back on the bed.

“I missed you so much,” he said.

“I know, Josh. You’ve been amazing. So brave and good.”

“You can be dead if you come back like this, okay? I don’t mind, as long as I can see you.”

She laughed, kissing his cheek, mouth, neck, sliding her hands down his back, to his hips, tugging him closer, opening her legs, and she—

HE JOLTED AWAKE with a raging hard-on and only the sleeping dog next to him.

“No!” he yelled, punching the mattress. “Goddamnit!” Pebbles leaped off the bed and ran into another room, but for the love of God, Josh did not want to wake up. It was like losing her all over again.