No more of Lauren’s mugs to taunt him from the cupboard each day, and a new scratch in the floor from his rage.
He’d had more red-outs in the past few years than he had in the rest of his life combined. Now that the rage had passed, he felt ashamed. Lauren had been busy just staying alive, and so what if her note was short? He was a shitty and ungrateful husband—widower—for not being more appreciative of these letters, even if this one wasn’t his favorite. She’d been busy trying to live.
Josh sighed, got Pebbles and went up to the garden, careful to avoid looking over. Instead, he looked up at the sky. Almost sunset now. October’s days were notably shorter, and Josh was relieved. August had been wretchedly hot, the weather and humidity seeming to suck the color and life from everything and replace it with sepia-toned pollution or bland, not-quite-real air from the AC.
After seeing Gertie, he’d fallen into a funk. He wanted to feel completely different after the visit—my wife is in heaven and she sees me!—but it didn’t bring Lauren back. Was there a heaven? Maybe? He hoped so, for her sake.
But his problem wasn’t the afterlife. It was the here and now. He skipped karate classes, not wanting to bring his gloom to the little kids, and emailed Asmaa, saying he had a big project to finish, so he couldn’t help out at the center as much this month. She wrote back kindly, saying to take his time, and they’d be happy to see him whenever he could make it in.
It seemed so long ago that he’d been a married man. That his wife and he had sat in the rooftop garden, or at the Cape house, or downstairs, the two of them made safe by love.
Do something for his professional life, and try something he was afraid of.
He sighed. Pebbles jumped up next to him and put her head on his leg, and he petted her silky head, grateful for the perfect forgiveness of a dog.
Each year, Johnson & Johnson sponsored a giant medical device conference, and he’d gone every year since he was twenty, except for last year, when he was afraid to leave his wife. He could go again; he’d been thinking of it himself, more for a change of scenery than anything else. It was next week, so that would take care of Lauren’s request for this month. But it didn’t have the kismet feeling the volunteering letter had . . . the feeling that they were still in sync somehow, that she’d been able to read his mind.
As far as the “do something you’re scared of doing,” he wasn’t sure what that meant. He’d presented at this conference before, and while he didn’t love crowds, he wasn’t phobic or anything. He just left when it got too overwhelming or loud.
What had Lauren had in mind?
He would never know.
* * *
A FEW DAYS later, he flew out to San Francisco for the conference. He let the now-familiar refrain of the grieving run through his head. The last time I was on a plane, Lauren was . . . He’d posted on the forum about this, and it was a common experience; every experience clashing with a recollection of loss. For five hours, he stared out the window, watching America drift past below.
When they landed, he took a car to the hotel where the conference was held, signed in, got his badge and went up to his hotel room, which was very clean and generic, and on the second floor, per his request. He unpacked, ironed his shirt and looked at the conference program, marking which presentations and speakers he wanted to see. He knew some of them. Plenty of people likewise knew his name, because for a thirty-year-old, he was kind of a big deal. When he couldn’t stall any longer, he brushed his teeth and went downstairs to the conference rooms and displays.
Shockingly, it was a relief. All these people who didn’t know, all these people who just wanted to talk to him about work, new products on the market, trends in design, new technology.
For two days, he was immersed in the field he loved, the only one he’d ever considered working in. He went to the keynote lunch, given by a billionaire inventor who believed in global healthcare and pandemic preparedness. In workshops, he was greeted with respect and recognition. Twice, he saw his design for the neonatal monitoring bed in presentations, which gave him a quiet flare of pride.
Chiron Medical Enterprises, the company in Singapore who’d hired him to design a smart scalpel for spinal surgeries, was a sponsor of the conference. He’d sent them the final design and specs just last month. Alex Lang, the CEO, and Naomi Finn, the COO, found him and asked him to dinner. He accepted.
They met in the lobby and took a town car to an impressive restaurant at the base of the Bay Bridge, that other unsung wonder of San Francisco. Alex and Naomi flattered him, talked shop, told him funny stories and generally schmoozed him.
Sure enough, by the end of the second bottle of wine, the pitch came. “Josh, we’d love to have you work with us exclusively,” Alex said. “You could live in Singapore, or you could stay in Rhode Island. And let’s be honest, you can name your salary and benefits package. We want you to head up the design team, and we’re willing to do what it takes to make it happen.”
“That’s very flattering,” he said.
“Have you been to Singapore?” Naomi asked. “It’s amazing. Seriously. I’ve lived in seven major cities, including Sydney and Paris, and Singapore is the most beautiful of them all.”
He nodded, remembered to smile, and for a few minutes, he let himself picture being the type of guy who could live on the other side of the planet, who could walk cheerfully into a glass office and have two administrative assistants and a gaggle of engineers to do the mundane parts of his job.
“Fly out, on us,” Alex said. “Have a look around. Bring your—hell, I don’t know if you’re even married.”
The question was like a baseball bat to the head.
Answer, he told himself.
The pause was going on too long.
“I’m not,” he said.
Naomi said, “That wedding ring is just to scare off any interested parties, then?”
They didn’t know. They didn’t know. If he told them now, he’d see their expressions change from interest to pity, or shock or compassion. “It’s a cultural thing,” he lied.
“Another one of the great things about Singapore is how multicultural it is,” Alex said, and Joshua was off the hook as the pair extolled the benefits of the city-state.
When the conference ended the next afternoon, Josh was exhausted from all that time with other people. But he didn’t want to go home just yet. The idea of going back now, in late October when the leaves had fallen in a heavy rain and windstorm and the city would be gray and dark . . . He decided to be spontaneous and stay.
Cookie Goldberg, his virtual assistant, switched his flight and booked him for another two days at the hotel. Then Josh texted Jen, Donna and his mom. Jen responded by saying that they might have to keep Pebbles forever, because Sebastian was so in love with her. She texted a picture of the boy, sound asleep, Pebbles sleeping next to him, her head on his pillow. Sweet.