Not exactly a passionate argument for the power of prayer. Josh was twelve when he dropped the belief of God completely. Oh, church was fine—he liked the sameness of the service, the music at Christmas and Easter. He liked that his mother was so well regarded by the other parishioners. No one ever made a fuss over her lack of a spouse, and they always told him what a good kid he was.

But for him, the experience was more about the smells of candles and lemon wax, the handshake from the pastor, who had a certain celebrity about him in his robes. Josh had taken Lauren a few times when they were engaged, and a few times afterward, before she was diagnosed. He liked the cooing of the church ladies as Stephanie introduced Lauren, and he loved seeing Lauren charm everyone.

So Josh had nothing against church. He just didn’t believe in God. Or the Great Beyond.

Until Lauren had gotten sick, that was, and then he understood. There might not be any atheists in foxholes, and there were definitely no atheists in the ICU. You can’t be an atheist when your twenty-seven-year-old spouse is fighting to breathe, her eyes wide, clawing at her throat. You can’t be an atheist when you see her intubated and still. Or when they tell you there’s no cure for what she has.

He’d prayed. He asked God to forgive his earlier lack of faith. He accepted the prayers of his mother’s church friends, the prayer chain they set up for him, the rosaries Sumi Kim (a Catholic) fervently offered, the quieter, more poetic prayers of Ben (a Buddhist). Josh begged. There was nothing pretty or ceremonial about his praying, no sir. He asked God for time, for a trial drug to work, for a miracle reversal. Of course he did.

And then, after God failed to save her, when God said no to the prayers and left Josh alone in the world, lost and stunned and bereft, he became an atheist again.

It just made more sense. If anyone deserved to live, it had been Lauren.

He looked at the clock again: 3:22. With a sigh, he got up to work and give Pebbles a snack to apologize for scaring her.

A FEW DAYS after the marathon where he so distinguished himself, he asked Sarah out for dinner. A nice restaurant, one he hadn’t ever been to before, to avoid memories of Lauren. They ordered a bottle of wine, and Josh had half a glass. He’d written up a few index cards to remind him of things to ask her, because he tended to go blank when interacting with people he wasn’t a hundred percent comfortable with.