The kids glared at him. “Why are you so old?” one little girl asked after she’d been assigned as his partner.

“I’m like a dragon,” he said. “Old and wise.”

“I can beat you up,” she said.

“I believe it.”

She punched him in the thigh to prove it.

“Ouch,” he said.

“Lyric, no hitting your partner! Give me twenty push-ups,” Sensei Jane said from the front of the room. Her voice sounded stuffy from the swelling. The little girl gave Josh a look that said, Watch your back, and started doing Marine-perfect push-ups. She couldn’t have been more than five.

They kicked the air and hit a punching bag. The kids were damn cute, Josh had to admit. And he liked kids. Even Lyric. He admired the way they didn’t trust him or didn’t think he was anything special just because he was an adult. The way they’d rushed to defend their teacher.

When class was over, and Josh had been introduced to the parents, one of whom was a former classmate from RISD and two who had known Lauren, Sarah took him to the sushi place next door.

“Did you know I’d be in a class with kindergarteners?” he asked.

“Honestly, no. That was just a gift. I knew Jane would throw you around a little. She does that to all the new students. Well, not the little kids. But the ones who think a four-foot-ten senior citizen can’t defend herself.”

“I punched her. In the face. Not great advertising,” he said.

“Oh, one of the kids distracted her. You’ll never win another fight with her again. Enjoy the moment.”

He took a piece of spicy tuna with eel and chewed.

Lauren would’ve loved this night, Josh thought as they ate their sushi rolls and seaweed salad. She would’ve been rolling on the floor with laughter at the sight of him towering over the little kids. She would’ve approved a hundred percent.

15

Joshua

Still month four

June 12

ON LAUREN’S BIRTHDAY, he went into her closet, sat with the last pair of pajamas she’d ever worn and held them against his face, breathing in her smell.

She would’ve been twenty-nine years old today.

For their third anniversary, the gift was supposed to be leather. He’d gone to the same jewelry store where he’d bought her engagement ring, and picked out a watch with a green leather band. While in the store, he’d also bought her a pair of dangling gold earrings with pearls on the end. They would look so pretty swaying against her hair, he’d thought. Pearls were her birthstone. His plan had been to save them for June, unaware that she’d die within days of his purchase.

It seemed so long ago, that dark February day, the salesperson complimenting him on his taste and saying his wife was a lucky woman.