She hung up with her sister, feeling slightly less alone. For the first time, she wondered about her and Josh. Was it selfish of her, being in a relationship that was doomed? Should she . . . divorce him? It had been really easy to picture him as her rock, her hero, but maybe this was too much for any human heart to endure.

Maybe, she thought, tears dripping onto Pebbles’s head, maybe it would be better if she cut him loose sooner than later. Because she would be leaving him. They both knew that. Divorce might be easier for him to handle. She knew he loved her; that was almost the problem.

Lauren cleaned up the Sheetrock, though obviously she couldn’t patch the hole in the wall without the proper supplies. She took the puppy for a walk. She texted Josh, then called him. He didn’t respond. She had the immature idea to pretend she felt horrible to guilt him into coming back, but she immediately dismissed it as a teenage move (though tempting, sure).

She texted again, saying that she loved him and wanted to talk. He didn’t respond. She called him. It went to voice mail.

She pictured herself going through IPF alone. Well, she wouldn’t be alone. She had Jen and Darius, Sarah, her friends, her mother, her coworkers. There would be plenty of people, and maybe a shared burden would be best (because let’s face it, she’d be a burden).

He came home around ten that night.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

He looked at the wall and didn’t say anything else.

“You scared Pebbles,” she said. “And me.”

“Sorry.”

She rolled her eyes. “Shitty apology, Josh.”

He stood there with his arms at his sides, looking as if it were the first time he was in his own body—stiff, agitated, foreign. “You can’t make jokes about your life, Lauren. Not to me.”

“It wasn’t a joke, honey. The odds are—”

“No! Stop.”

“Joshua,” she said, going to him and taking his hands. They felt like dead things, like pieces of wood. “I have a terminal disease. You know this. I know this. The odds are this dog will outlive me. Plus, she’s prettier than I am.”

“Every time you say something that’s supposed to be a joke, it’s . . . it’s like a knife in my chest,” he said.

She pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry. I don’t . . . I just don’t want to be like my mother. I have to be able to make a joke.”

“No, Lauren!” He jerked his hands away. “Not about your life! Stop trying to be Princess Butterflies and Rainbows all the time!”