Walking was slightly easier with David, because David did not stop talking to draw a breath. He was overcoming some issues of his own, right, doing great, eating clean, and he was so psyched to see other people, you know, confronting their fears and the past and future, and wasn’t it, like, crazy that the world was so beautiful even with all the shit going on?

Josh tried not to look at anything other than the pavement in front of him, though his peripheral vision showed the cables that made the bridge stand. Would one snap? Would it hit him in the head and send him tumbling over the side, or would it hit him in the throat so he’d bleed out, clutching at the geyser of blood? Would this cause a chain reaction that would then send cars careening into pillars and the bridge crashing into the water, the people screaming—

“We’re halfway across, dude,” David said. “Let’s take a minute so you can look around.”

Josh stopped. He was shaking violently, but his knees hadn’t buckled again. He kept his gaze fixed on the ground. If he didn’t look up, did it count? It would. It did.

But Lauren would want him to see the view. She loved new experiences. She loved heights, the ridiculous woman. She’d never backed down from anything, at least not that he knew of. That time in La Jolla, when she went hang gliding, and she was so happy, so alive.

He raised his eyes slowly, slowly, got his gaze about a foot off the ground, saw the glittering water, then looked back at the beloved pavement. If he ran, how long would it take him to get back on solid ground? Bicyclists whizzed past on the walkway, and hey, wasn’t it a walkway, did they have to be so fast, and what if a car jumped the lane and killed him, and all these people, really, did they all have a death wish?

Don’t be a loser.

Lauren’s voice was so clear . . . the fond way she had said that line, the challenge he’d always accepted. He gripped the railing and forced his head up and kept his eyes open. For a second, the scene swam in front of him, and he thought he might vomit, or faint, or fall, but then the view came into focus.

San Francisco’s buildings, white and sharp against the sky. Alcatraz. Marin. Boats and birds. He turned around and saw the Pacific spreading out, so blue and vast.

It was . . . stunning.

I hope you can see this, honey.

A deep breath that didn’t quite work. Another one. Another, slower one. Relax and breathe, he used to say to his wife. Relax and breathe, nice and slow. If she could do it, so could he. After all, she’d been facing death. He was just being a wuss.