“Okay,” he said.
“I’m going to die from this,” she said, her voice shaking. “Not today. But I . . . yeah.” It was the first time she’d said it aloud. “I’ll die from this.”
“No. No, you’re not. We have to stay positive.”
“Well, I’ve been—”
In a rare move, he interrupted her. “I’ve already talked to someone at Johns Hopkins. They have something really promising in development. You’re on the list when human trials—”
“Josh, please. We have to be realistic.”
“—start, and so far, the results are fantastic.”
“In mice,” she said. He wasn’t the only one researching IPF.
“Yes. In mice.” His jaw tightened.
“I need to talk about the future.”
“And you will be fine in the future,” he said.
“Joshua!” she said, then coughed. “Please listen.”
“No!” he barked, then lowered his voice. “No, Lauren. You’re not going to die. I won’t let you.”
“Okay, God.” She forced a smile. “Good to be married to the Almighty. If you were a mere mortal, this might be a disaster, but lucky for me, you won’t let me die.”
“Don’t,” he bit off, staring at the wall. “The cure is right on the horizon.”
“For mice.” Most of these promising mouse cures didn’t make it to human trials. And even if they did, most of the patients with IPF wouldn’t be alive when that day came.
“There’s a trial coming in about a year that has—”
“Are you going to sit there and ignore what I have to say, or are you going to be my husband?”
His face cracked a little. “The trial . . . it looks good,” he said, but a few tears slid out of his eyes.
“I’m glad,” she whispered. “I hope it works.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, the shadows lengthening as night crept toward them.
“I saw a little kid today,” she said, looking at the doorway. “Maybe five years old. She’s not gonna make it. She was so thin, and her skin was yellow. But she smiled at me.”
He bowed his head.
So he knew, too. That her life would be short.
“Honey,” she whispered, “aside from a miracle cure, I’m going to die from this. And I need to wrap my head around the idea, because I’ve been pretending it’s not true.” She paused, took a slow, careful breath. “It is true. It’s something we need to accept.”
“I will never accept this.” His voice was low and fierce.
Her eyes filled. “I need you to. So we can have more in our lives than me being sick.”
“No. I won’t accept it.” But he bent over so his head was resting on her lap, and she felt his shoulders jerk. She stroked his shiny, shiny black hair, smoothing in her teardrops as they fell.
“Josh,” she said as gently as she could, “if you’re sad for the rest of my however-long life, I won’t be able to stand it. I’ll die of a broken heart before I die from this stupid lung thing. I need you to be with me, not trying to cure me.” She started crying in earnest now and had to cough. “I’m scared, and I don’t want to be, and I can’t be brave without you. I want to be like that little girl. I want to smile on my last days. I want to love the rest of my life, and I can’t, Josh, I can’t if you’re not right here with me.”
“Oh, honey, I am. I’m here.” He got into bed with her and held her tight, her tears soaking into his shirt as she cried.
She didn’t want him desperate and working to find a cure, the days sliding past as he Googled and researched and called people at Stanford and tried to invent something that would Roto-Rooter her lungs. Because in the end, she would still die. She knew that now. And if she only had a little while left, be it months or years or even a miraculous decade, she needed him to be here. Present. Happy to be married to her.
“I understand,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ll do whatever you want. Be however you want.”
“I only want you.”
He raised his head, and his eyes were so sad. “I only want you, too,” he whispered.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know, honey.” The sadness, the grief, the fear were suddenly crushing. He gathered her in his arms and held her so close.
That little girl would never have this.
Lauren was the lucky one.
“Think of what a hot widower you’ll make,” she whispered.
And, because he was the best husband ever, because he could read her so completely, he said, “I think I might have a chance at Beyoncé.”
* * *
THE HOSPITALIZATION CHANGED her. Being able to admit that her life could end at any minute, having been that close to death, and having Josh understand where she was—it triggered something unexpectedly joyful. She beamed at her mother when Donna came to visit, let her nephew push the buttons to raise and lower her bed, looked at Sarah’s matches on OkCupid and offered advice, sent Darius to get her and Jen a double order of cheeseburger sliders from Harry’s. “I’m also eating for two, in solidarity,” Lauren told him. And later, when Josh was lying next to her in her hospital bed, she let her hands wander.
Life was good. Life was here, and she was in it. She was with the living, and she was damn lucky.
She didn’t see the little girl again. Didn’t know her name to ask after her.
When she was finally discharged, two days after Dr. Bennett promised, the ride home seemed so full of color and beauty, she felt new, her nose practically pressed against the window. It was summer! It was so green! The sky was unbelievably blue, and it seemed like every business and residence was in a competition for most beautiful window box. You could almost forget what season it was when you were hospitalized.
Sarah had been at the apartment, Josh told her, and when they went in, Lauren practically cried at the welcome sight of the place. It felt like she’d been gone for years, not ten days. Someone—Steph, no doubt—had baked a coffee cake, which was still warm and made the whole apartment smell like cinnamon. On the kitchen table, there was a vase full of yellow roses and a note that read, Welcome home, you two! in her mother-in-law’s blocky printing.
“Wow,” Lauren said. “I’m so happy.”
“Are you crying?” Josh asked. “Such a sap.”