They sat there in silence, listening to Octavia breathe. After a while, Jen said, “Let’s go to the movies one night soon, okay?”

When Lauren was a dorky adolescent, wearing overalls and a cropped T-shirt and too-short bangs with a beret, Jen had generously overlooked her fashion choices and would take her to the movies. Alone or with Jen’s cool friends, and she never skimped on popcorn and Reese’s Pieces.

“Okay,” Lauren said, her voice cracking.

“I don’t know what I’ll do without you,” Jen said, putting her hand over her mouth.

“I’m glad I’m dying first, so I don’t have to live without you,” she answered. “Hand to God, I’m glad.”

“I could get hit by a bus. You never know.” And then they started laughing, that wonderful, ridiculous, unstoppable laugh, sitting there, holding hands, drinking weird-tasting tea. When Sebastian and Darius came in, Sebastian ran to Lauren and gave her a slobbery kiss, and everything was good again.

But they knew. Lauren would die young. Maybe she’d see Sebastian’s first day of school, but she wouldn’t see him get his driver’s license. She wouldn’t take Octavia shopping for bras and listen to her talk about friends. She wouldn’t see them for prom pictures or talk to them about college.

But hopefully, she’d see all those things from the Great Beyond, with her father. Please let that be true, that we’ll be together, Daddy. Surely we deserve that. Also, being a dolphin for a day. Do not fail me, Great Beyond.

She held Octavia again before she left the house, breathed in the smell of her head, kissed her impossibly soft cheek. “I love you,” she whispered.

Octavia answered by puking breast milk into her hair. It was, oddly enough, just what Lauren needed. Snap out of it, Auntie.

So she did. When you’re living with a ticking clock, you can’t be a loser. You can’t think about what you won’t get to see, what you’ll never have. Ain’t no one got time for that.

8

Joshua

Month two

April