“It takes a while, yes.” Kwana seemed to be very still. Josh took Lauren’s hand. His was sweaty.

“Okay,” said Kwana. “We’ve done every test we can, and we did a couple twice. It looks like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.” Lots of syllables in that one. “We had a tough time diagnosing it because we wanted to be sure. It’s not a common disease in someone so young.”

“Okay,” Lauren said. So they had a name for it, and she’d take medicine and it would clear up.

She looked at Josh. His face was gray. Nope. Gonna ignore your face, babe. “What’s the plan, then?”

There was a pause. Another fucking pause, and suddenly, Lauren was shaking. She couldn’t look at Josh, because . . . because . . .

“Now, don’t panic,” Dr. Bennett said. “What happens with this disease”—disease? That sounded horrible!—“is that your lungs create a fibrous tissue. Scarring. We don’t know why. Some people who work with asbestos or fine particulates get it. Yours is called idiopathic, because we don’t know why you have it.” She paused, looking at both of them in turn to make sure they were following. My husband is a genius, lady, Lauren wanted to say. You don’t need to slow down for him.

On the other hand, Lauren was having some trouble hearing. There was a persistent, high-pitched buzz in her ears. Defense mechanism, probably, to block out—

“The problem is, the scarring takes up room in your lungs. That’s why you’ve had problems breathing.”

“I really haven’t! I mean, just a little. Once in a while.”

Kwana nodded. “Right. And it’s great that we caught it early. There are some very good medications that can slow this thing down.”

“Great!”

“And oxygen to help you when you’re short of breath.”

“Wait. What? I don’t need to be on oxygen? I mean, I fainted one time! Twice! But one time after a long hike and not enough hydration, and the other time, because . . . because . . .” Her voice had the hint of hysteria in it, and she let it trail off.

“Well,” Kwana said gently, “there will probably be times down the road when you will need it, and it’ll make you feel significantly better. A lot less tired.”

“But I’m fine. I mean, I really feel quite . . . quite good.” She looked at Josh. He didn’t look at her. He wasn’t blinking. Just staring at Dr. Bennett.

Oh . . . shit. He shut down like this when big things happened. He just got really, really quiet. Like when his favorite professor had died a few months before they got married. He didn’t talk, he didn’t cry, he just went into this . . . nothingness. When she’d called his mom to ask if he was okay, she said he’d done the same thing when her father had died when Josh was twenty.