34

Joshua

Month fourteen

April

THE LETTER SAT on his bureau, where he’d put it since Sarah had dropped it off.

Josh, #12.

He still hadn’t read it. Why would he? He could keep this thing going forever if he didn’t open that envelope.

A month ago, Radley had moved into the house in Cranston and was stripping the wallpaper. He sent daily updates and photos, commenting on how the snowdrops had popped up on the lawn, how the daffodils would burst soon. It would be lovely. It already was.

But Josh didn’t have plans to move just yet, because moving . . . that would be the end of the time he’d lived in this apartment with his wife. He suddenly understood why so many folks on the forum had left their houses shrines to their lost spouses. Because it was comforting. Because once he sold this place, he would never be able to come back.

But things were changing whether he wanted them to or not.

The apartment didn’t smell the way it used to. Lauren’s shower gel had turned rancid (damn that organic stuff), and he’d had to throw it away. Her pillow had lost its Lauren smell, no matter how deeply he inhaled. He’d started sleeping in the middle of the bed.

And he had the new job. He was getting acclimated to working with other people, daily updates, action points, Zoom meetings (God bless the mute and video cut buttons). Frank the Realtor had rented out a floor of office space for Josh’s new team in the Hanley Building. He took his new engineer out for dinner; Erika had worked in Singapore but grew up on the East Coast, and she was thrilled to be back near her family. He hired a whiz kid—Mateo Cano—out of the same MIT program he’d been in, and he’d start in June. As for his administrative assistant, he offered the job to Cookie Goldberg.

“I live on Long Island,” she said in her gravelly voice. “What do you think, I’m gonna move for you?”

“I was hoping,” he said.

“I have nine grandchildren within two blocks.”

“So you tell me.”

“I guess this is the end of the road, then,” she said, and for some reason, though he had only met her in person at Lauren’s funeral, his throat tightened.

“Thank you for everything,” he said, clearing his throat.

“You bet.” And then she hung up, as unsentimental as ever. He sent her a severance check of $25,000 and the note Take the grandkids to a national park on me.