“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
Dear Joshua,
I love writing your name. Full swoony geek disclosure: I practiced writing it after our first date. In calligraphy. How dorky is that?
Are you doing all right, honey? I hope you’re sleeping okay. I know how you get when you’re stressed. Listen to one of those relaxation apps at bedtime. Try some CBD gummies—they helped me—or a Benadryl if you need to. I worry about you.
Me, I bet I’m sleeping great . . . not in the sleeps-with-the-fishes way, but maybe in the sleeps-with-the-dolphins way. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I could be on a raft on a gentle azure ocean where there are no sharks or bitey things. I’m dozing and rocking while baby dolphins leap over me. Maybe I am one of those dolphins. At any rate, you don’t have to worry about me. The Great Beyond is (I’m 99.999 percent sure) fantastic.
Are you getting outside enough? Taking Pebbles for a walk or run? Keep her healthy. Don’t overfeed her. Please tell her I love her, okay? Tell her I’m sorry I had to go away, and she was the best dog ever. IS the best dog ever. (She’s sitting next to me on the bed as I write this, and when I cry, she sits right on my lap, puts her paws on my shoulders and licks my tears. I want to think she’s comforting me, but I think she just wants the salty deliciousness.)
I hope the grocery shopping task went well. Tell Yolanda hi from me. Actually, that would be weird, wouldn’t it? “My dead wife sends her best!” Better skip that.
This month, honey, I want you to have some people over for dinner. I know you’ll hate that idea, but I think you need to eat with humans once in a while, not just Pebbles. Bring some life into the apartment. Maybe have a few laughs, even.
Invite my sister and Darius, Mom (or not), your mom, maybe Sarah. Cook for them. Let them hug you. Go ahead and talk about me and cry if you need to. But let them come into our home and be part of your life, honey. Don’t shut them out. They love you. Or just invite people who don’t know you that well but seem nice. Your patent attorney whose name I can’t remember right now. She was nice. One of your old professors from RISD. Creepy Charlotte from the first floor, who eye-fucks you every time she sees you. (Just kidding! Do not invite that woman to my house!)
It really doesn’t matter who. I’m so sorry that I put you in this place, Josh. I’m with you, though. I live in your heart, and there’s no better place I could be.
I hope you’re doing a little better, showering and eating and maybe working some, too. Getting some sunshine. I don’t know what time of year I died, but get sunshine even if it’s winter.
I love you so, so much. With all my heart, liver, pancreas, stomach, kidneys, and even with my crappy lungs.
Now make some calls. Don’t be a loser.
I love you.
Lauren
She was right. He hated the idea.
But God, he loved hearing from her. He’d read the first letter so many times he had it memorized. Knowing he was going to have twelve of them, he’d ordered a museum-quality, pH-neutral box, handmade by a craftsman in Louisiana. Tiger maple exterior, lined in special cloth so the letters wouldn’t age.
He read the letter again. He could hear her voice, which had gotten raspier throughout her illness from intubations and coughing, but which he loved just the same. He could almost smell her skin . . . the faint floral scent of her shower gel, the citrusy perfume she loved, the hint of menthol from the Vicks VapoRub she swore helped her breathe.
He closed his eyes, summoning her. Be with me, he thought. He might not believe in God, but he did believe in Lauren. Come to me, honey. The sunshine on her dark red hair, illuminating a dozen different colors of brown, red, gold. Her pink lips and dark lashes. Eyes the color of whiskey. Her big laugh, bellowing out of her.
That laugh made her cough relentlessly in the last few months. How malicious, how evil, that laughter made her wince in pain.
With a sigh, he opened his eyes. He was still alone, but he had a little piece of her in his hands. Her words. Her sense of humor. Her love, shining from the letter.
He had been trying to do better, per her instructions. Shaved when he saw that he needed to. Set his phone to go off so he’d remember to shower.
For the past month, he’d taken Pebbles for long walks in Swan Point Cemetery or drove her to Colt State Park in Bristol, where the two of them would run and hopefully not see anyone he knew. He’d been better about throwing trash away. He tried not to nap for more than an hour. He set the alarm so he’d wake up in the morning and tried to remember to eat.
He was trying to show her he could do this.
It was as if, by doing what she said, he’d pass a test, and the reward would be Lauren, alive again. He knew the letters fed that idea. He’d catch himself thinking, When I talk to Lauren in April . . . Once, he thought, I can’t wait to tell Lauren about her letter.
Grief was a heavy, dark blanket, weighing him down, making the smallest things difficult. Before Lauren, he’d been a loner, sure, but it had been by choice. Now, it felt like the sun had fallen out of the sky, and the world was a wasteland of gray. He had to turn away from couples in the park or on the street. When his phone showed 183 texts, and his email inbox held 624 unread messages, he didn’t bother looking at them. None of them was from the one person he wanted.
As if on cue, his phone buzzed with an incoming call. Donna. “No,” he snapped, abruptly furious at the intrusion. He declined the call, then tossed his phone onto the chair opposite. “Talk to someone else.”