The cruelty of waking from that made Josh feel like he’d been hit in the chest with a baseball bat. Why would God give him that dream? Josh was raised as a Christian—Lutheran—though it didn’t really take. But these days, it was hard not to blame someone. To want to kick God in the nuts. Thanks for nothing. I knew you didn’t exist.

Jen texted every day. She was the only one Josh could tolerate, and only because Lauren had loved her so much. Darius checked in every fourth day, asking if he wanted company or to get out of the apartment. Donna would call, leaving tearful messages on his voice mail, and he’d call her back dutifully. Jen finally told her to give him some space, which Donna took very personally, and Josh just didn’t have the energy to care.

One day, when his hair felt sticky, he took a shower, standing under the spray, unable to tell if it was too hot or too cold. Why was he in here again? Oh, yes, hygiene. Lauren’s shampoo and shower gel were still on the shelf. He took the cap off, inhaled, then found himself lying on the shower floor, racked with the pain of losing her, the sounds coming from his mouth terrifying and unstoppable. He eventually fell asleep there, exhausted and wrung out, and woke up only when the water had turned frigid. Lauren would’ve been horrified to find him passed out like that. Let her be. Let her come in and say, “Jesus, Josh, what are you doing? Don’t be such a loser, hon!” She loved saying that to him, her voice always playful and full of love.

He found himself studying the framed pictures of them that Lauren had put throughout the apartment. Their wedding day. Hawaii. New Year’s Eve, when they’d hosted an actual party here, Josh’s first time ever doing so. Lauren giving Sebastian a piggyback ride. With his mother on her birthday. With her family at the wedding. The two of them in Paris. The two of them in the Caribbean. The day they got Pebbles. Holding Octavia in the hospital.

Knowing he couldn’t stop her illness and believing it were two different things. Wasn’t he the golden son of Rhode Island School of Design? Of Brown University? Didn’t he have a fucking PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology? Hadn’t he sold nine medical device patents in the past decade with five devices already on the market? He was a certified genius, and his purpose in life had been to be her husband, to protect her, and he’d failed. He’d failed.

He should eat something, he thought, tearing his eyes off the photo. Instead, he lay on the couch and fell asleep.