What should she do? He was almost pathologically even tempered. She didn’t even know he could get angry, let alone at her. In their entire marriage, they’d had one fight, when he didn’t want to go to her office Christmas party because it was too loud and crowded. She said they could leave early, or that he could just come in with her and stay for ten minutes and leave her and she’d get a ride home with someone else, but he wouldn’t budge. She’d gone herself, and sulked for the next day, punishing him. This man gave workshops to hundreds of people, after all. He had gone to three colleges where there were many people and noises.

He brought her flowers the next day and apologized. Came to Mara’s holiday party a few days later.

But nothing, nothing like this. She had never been scared of him, or his anger, ever. She didn’t really know he’d been capable of it.

She sniffed, wiped her eyes on her sleeve and kissed Pebbles’s little head. The puppy answered with a snore.

Lauren debated calling Steph to ask if this had ever happened, but didn’t want to put his mother in the middle. Instead, she went to Google and typed in a few words: Asperger’s, autism, anger, loss of control.

And then, after she’d read a few articles that seemed to describe what had just happened to a T, she looked up “anger when your spouse is terminally ill.”

Then she called her sister and told her everything.

“Oh, honey,” Jen said when she was done. “Can you blame him?”

“It was scary,” Lauren said, wiping her eyes.

“Were you afraid he’d hurt you?”

“No! No, of course not. It was just so shocking. Like he went Incredible Hulk on me.”

“He’s probably repressed a lot of shit. Do you guys talk about . . . oh, fuck, now I’m crying, too. Do you talk about everything, Lauren?”

“Sort of? We have. I just didn’t expect . . . this.”

“You struck a nerve.” She swallowed loudly. “And if the statistics are right, you were saying the truth.” Jen drew in a shuddering breath. “That fucking dog may well outlive you. I think I want to punch a wall now, too.”

“What do I do about Josh? I don’t even know where he went. I hope he’s talking to Ben. I hope Ben kicks his ass, quite frankly.”

“I think you should probably just . . . cut him some slack, Lauren. He loves you so much. You’re his whole world.”

She knew that.