One night, he’d set out her favorite mug next to his. Just to see them together again. Just to pretend for a few seconds that she’d be in this kitchen once more. Even if it was her ghost—and he didn’t believe in ghosts. Anything. Anything from her.
There was nothing.
He answered texts and emails and sometimes even the phone. He took Pebbles for a run in the morning, a walk at lunchtime, and, most nights, a romp in the dog park. If a person asked what her name and breed was, he’d answer. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, he went to karate, which was actually pretty fun. Being around five-year-olds with badass attitudes let him escape a little bit. He and Ben resumed their long, rambling walks. Ben had a soft spot for Pebbles and loved throwing her the Frisbee, which Pebbles could catch in midair.
“How are you doing, son?” Ben asked.
“Doing okay.” Somehow, those brief talks helped. He guessed it was just knowing Ben was with him that did the trick. They had never needed a lot of words, after all.
The anger would come in red flashes. He lost his car keys one day and tossed the apartment like a DEA agent looking for meth, knowing as he flipped the couch cushions and slammed drawers and barked out curse words that he was overreacting (and would be the one to clean the mess up later). His car didn’t start one day, and he kicked it so hard it dented. When his shirt got caught against a chain-link fence during a run, he tugged it, tore it, and then ripped the whole shirt off and split it in half, then tossed it in the trash.
It wasn’t the shirt, or the car battery, or the keys. It was one more thing, no matter how small, that he had to deal with. The rage was sickening and satisfying—he’d never kicked a car before, for God’s sake, and what good did it do? That thought hadn’t stopped him from kicking it over and over. The punching bag in the first-floor gym was earning its keep. If his little karate compadres could see him then, they’d be terrified.
Anger was one of the stages of grief, he knew. It made him feel huge and sick and even a little scared of himself, and when it passed, he was ashamed. “It’ll get better,” his mother said, staring at his now-calloused, reddened knuckles. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it’ll get easier, honey.”
He didn’t see how that was possible. Lauren had been the center of everything, it seemed, and now instead of her, there was a black hole with ragged, sharp teeth, gnawing at everyone who loved her, eating them like a snake eats a hapless field mouse, in gulps and fits.
Radley, his first post-Lauren friend, was a relief by comparison. He was often free, leading Josh to believe that either Radley didn’t have many friends either, or he was using Josh as a guinea pig for therapist training. Either way, he was grateful, because there were days when it felt like he didn’t really exist. That, were it not for a text from Jen here and an invitation from Radley there, Josh felt like he might not be . . . real, somehow. He talked out loud from time to time just to make sure he still had a voice. Pebbles would lift her head and wag, or come over and sit close to him, pressing herself against his legs.
He was so glad he had a dog.
The forum said everything was normal. Others understood and commiserated. It didn’t make the problems go away.
One day, Josh was contacted by Chiron Medical Enterprises, a company based in Singapore who’d bought one of his designs. They wanted a device that would help spinal surgeons detect different tissue types in the back to alleviate human error when inserting hardware, limiting damage to soft tissues and especially the spinal cord. It was a good project, complicated but with far-reaching benefits, right up his alley.
The more he sat at the computer, the easier it became to think about the job. His tunnel vision returned, the thought process that had allowed him to succeed so early in life.
He and Lauren had once watched a movie or TV show that depicted some young genius—Sherlock Holmes, maybe, or Alan Turing. The character saw various elements floating in patterns and connections that lit up, invisible to everyone else. Lauren had paused the movie and asked, “Is that what it’s like for you?”
“No,” he’d said slowly. “It’s the opposite. It’s literally tunnel vision. I see the problem, and the next sixteen steps, with the complications sitting on the road ahead, like hurdles I have to jump to keep going. Everything else is blocked out—what time of day it is, if I’m hungry, if it’s night or day or raining or sunny. There’s just the path to the solution. I think . . . well, I think I’m different because I can shut everything else out and see to the end of the tunnel.”
She’d looked at him a long time. “You’re remarkable, you know,” she said, running her fingertips up his cheek, touching his earlobe. “Utterly remarkable.”
He’d been unable to invent anything to help her, though.
Move along, loser, he could hear her say.
Finally, the morning came when Sarah dropped off the fifth letter. It had seemed like an eternity since the last one.
“Want some coffee?” he asked. It was a test for himself to see if he could wait, and also to try to be a good friend to Sarah, who missed Lauren, too, of course.
“That’d be nice. Thanks, Josh.”
Shit. He made the coffee, asked her a few questions about her life, tried to pay attention to her answers, rather than the envelope, which seemed to pulse as if it had a heartbeat.
“You must want to read that. I’ll get going,” Sarah said.
“Oh. Yeah. Okay. Um . . .” He never really knew what to say around her. “Thanks, Sarah.”
“You’re welcome. See you soon.”
He went to his office, leaving the letter there on the counter, and forced himself to concentrate on microscopic fibers and electrical impulses. He set the timer so he’d work until five p.m. Only then would he reward himself with the letter. With Lauren’s voice, her words, her presence.
When the timer went off, he leaped out of his chair. Tidied up the apartment, walked Pebbles, got himself a glass of wine—pinot grigio, and yes, it was sweet and girly, but he was a novice drinker still.
Then he went into his study, got the box that contained the other letters, and read them in order—the first one telling him her plan and sending him to the grocery store; the second one instructing him to have people over; the anniversary note; the third letter, which led him to Radley and a better wardrobe; and the fourth, which had him attending beginner karate classes.
And finally, his glass of wine half-gone, he rewarded himself with the latest missive.
A minute later, he put it down, oddly . . . irked.
It wasn’t as long as the others. It wasn’t as sentimental or funny or personal. It was . . . bossy. Brisk, as if she had better things to do.
Hi, hon! Listen. It’s time to get rid of the couch and our bed. In other words, places we had sex. You can’t have memorial sex spots forever. “This is where I shagged my dead wife.” No, Josh. Besides, every time you look at those, I bet you picture me, sucking on oxygen and being sick. So give the couch to the community center (don’t tell them about the sexy times) and donate the bed frame to the Habitat for Humanity store. You may as well donate my clothes while you’re at it. Don’t be that creepy loser who keeps all his dead wife’s stuff, okay?