“Benadryl is in the bathroom,” Josh said. He looked around. “But aside from the dog eating our dinner, and your hives, Jen, and the shitty pizza and the sales pitch, how’s everyone doing?”

Darius started laughing, and then so did Jen, and then Sarah.

Josh felt himself almost smiling. He’d forgotten he could make people laugh from time to time. In another minute, he managed a smile. After a second, he even laughed, the sound rusty from neglect.

The first time he’d laughed since Lauren had died.

9

Lauren

Eleven months left

March 13

Dear Dad,

I was in the hospital again. Ugh. Right before my second anniversary, too. Just for three days this time, but I definitely know the staff by now. I had pneumonia, which is not good.

Here’s an insider secret: Being sick is really boring. Boring to live, boring to discuss, boring to hear about, and yet everyone asks. Everyone. “You look too pretty to be in here!” said the guy taking me to a chest X-ray. “What’s the matter with you, honey?”

So I told him, like I tell everyone. I’m a walking advocate for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis research, education and treatment. I can recite facts in my sleep. Then there are the other sick people I see. Most of them are older, and I think I make them feel good about themselves. “At least I’m eighty! That poor girl over there isn’t even thirty!”

The worst thing is to see the sick kids. If I could donate the time I have left to them, I’d do it, Dad. I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Sorry to be a downer today. I seem to have the blues.

Miss you, Pop.

Lauren

“We should take a vacation,” Lauren said. She was itchy and scratchy, still irritable that she’d had to go to the hospital again. “Maybe somewhere tropical and warm, since we didn’t do anything for our anniversary.”

“We could go back to Hawaii,” he suggested. “Rent the same house.”

It seemed so long ago, their honeymoon. That carefree time when she thought an inhaler could cure her, when they talked about baby names and learning to scuba dive and how they’d come back to Kauai for their twenty-fifth anniversary to renew their vows.

She didn’t want to taint that beautiful place with her sickness.

“Let’s go somewhere different,” she said brightly. “The Caribbean, maybe? I’ve never been. And the flight’s a lot shorter.”

“Whatever you want, honey.” He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back. Lucky. She was damn lucky.

That’s my girl, she could almost hear her father say. That’s my girl.