He looked around the apartment and was horrified at the mess. Lauren would hate it. She was—had been—a very tidy person, and she would hate seeing their place like this. He was forty-five minutes into cleaning before he realized he was cleaning up for her. In case she came home.

When people called, he said he was doing okay. Getting through it. Hanging in there. But he kept looking at the door, same as Pebbles did. The poor dog did not understand that her owner wasn’t coming back. Pebbles used to sleep with them, but Josh couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping in the bed he’d shared with his wife. Pebbles and he now slept in the guest room at the end of the hallway.

He didn’t want to work. He didn’t care what was happening in the world or nation. He powered off his computers and set an automatic response for emails, saying he was taking some time off after a death in the family.

Jen, Darius and the kids had come over the day after the funeral to return Pebbles. Little Sebastian had run around the apartment, opening doors, looking under the couch, in the cabinets. “Where’s Auntie?” he demanded. “Is she hiding? She’s not dead! She’s not! She’s hiding!” A screaming tantrum had followed. Josh knew exactly how he felt. Darius had left with both kids, apologizing.

Grieving together, Josh found, was worse than grieving alone. His own searing pain was shocking—physically agonizing, causing him to bend in two, his hands over his head as if warding off a blow.

But seeing Jen sobbing into a towel in the bathroom, or sniffing the sweater Lauren had worn so often, ripped his heart out and ground it up with shards of broken glass. The sight of Donna, his mother-in-law, stroking a picture of Lauren, her mouth trembling, suddenly looking twenty years older, gutted him. His own mom, her face swollen from crying, trying to hide her tears by scrubbing his counters. Ben, squeezing his shoulder, wordless, his eyes wet as he looked away from a photo of Lauren on her wedding day. Ben had served as best man that day.

Yeah. Solo was definitely the way to go. Without his family, or hers, it didn’t feel so real. Sitting alone on the couch with the dog in the evening, all the lights off, he and Pebbles could both pretend Lauren was just about to walk in the door.