Pebbles trotted joyfully next to him as he walked down the street, then into the park. It was mild out, in the midfifties, and the sun was bright and strong. People were all around, and maybe they recognized him as the guy with the brown-and-white dog, the guy with the wife on oxygen. Maybe they called out and said hello, but he was too buzzed with excitement to notice.

Get busy living, or get busy dying. Ha. Their joke.

He walked back to the apartment building’s parking lot. “You wanna go for a ride?” he asked their dog. “A ride?”

Pebbles answered with a nearly human string of sounds, her feathery tail swishing, those cute triangular ears at high alert.

“Let’s go, then.” He opened the door and she leaped in. He started the car, rolled down the windows enough so she could stick her head out, but not enough that she could jump out. It was a beautiful day. Very mild and sunny. The trees were turning faintly red with buds. That’s right. It was now officially spring.

At Stop & Shop, he parked, raised the windows enough so Pebbles could have fresh air but not lick passersby. He grabbed a cart and went inside and began zooming down the aisles. Arugula, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, peapods, red peppers, yellow peppers, oranges, ginger, garlic. Cheerios, sort of nutritious. Peanut butter, great on everything. Pasta, why not? Bread. Salmon, so healthy, plus Lauren loved it. Chicken breasts. Paper towels, the extra-soft tissues Lauren liked. Clorox Clean-Up, because they always had to make sure any contagious germs were . . .

Oh. Right. The germs were a moot point. And there was no they anymore. He wasn’t shopping for them anymore. Ever.

It was just him. The knowledge made him light-headed.

“Excuse me. Excuse me. Sir? Can you move?”

Josh blinked. Someone was trying to get around him, because apparently he’d stopped in the middle of the aisle.

“Yes. Sorry.” It was a mother, a toddler in the front of the cart and an older kid, maybe five, sitting among the groceries.

For the first time, it hit him that he’d never be a father. Not to Lauren’s kids. He’d always hoped that her IPF could be stopped, that she’d live decades more, and he wouldn’t give up on the idea of kids. Anything was possible. She’d only been twenty-eight. There was still time for the wonder cure that would put her IPF into permanent suspension, or even cure it.

But time had run out. There would be no kids. No genetic memory of her, no seeing her smile on a child’s face, no hearing a laugh that was just like hers.

The smaller child looked at him and started to cry.

“Sorry,” he said, and this time, he actually moved the cart.