“The cutest baby ever!” she said, clapping her hands. “No offense to our own four.”
“They were funny-looking, it’s true,” said Ben.
Lauren drank in the pictures—the Kims throwing baby Josh a Baek-il, his one-hundred-day birthday. Steph laughing as Josh chewed wrapping paper on Christmas morning. Josh dressed in a little suit for Easter. Josh riding a bike, his face fiercely focused as Ben ran alongside him. At one of the Kim daughters’ weddings. His high school graduation. Pictures of him in front of the first-year quad at RISD.
It looked very much like a happy, full life.
Stephanie was the director of the Rhode Island Hospital lab, overseeing a staff of about twenty. Once Josh turned eight, he’d gone to the Kims’ house after school, which explained why he spoke Korean. The Parks were always included in holidays.
A small family circle—no mention of the deadbeat dad—but a loving, happy circle just the same.
“Tell us about yourself, Lauren,” Stephanie asked at dinner.
“I work as a public space designer, which means I design everything from a bus stop to a park to a doctor’s office. I have an older sister, Jen, and she and her husband have a little boy. My mom still works as a reading consultant for the public schools, and my dad . . .” Her voice choked off unexpectedly. “My dad died when I was twenty.”
“So sad,” said Sumi, patting her hand. “Do you like Korean food?”
Lauren smiled. “I love it.”
“I can teach you to cook, just like I taught Joshua!”
“I will not teach you to cook,” said Stephanie, smiling. “I’m a fair gardener, though. And a great baker.”
“Wait till you see Mom’s peonies this spring,” Josh said, and it warmed her through and through. Spring was months away, but he was planning on her being there.
Le sigh.
“Josh has never brought a girl home before,” Ben murmured, leaning in. “We were a little surprised, to be honest. In the best way, of course.” He smiled, and Lauren’s toes curled in her shoes. They liked her. Thank God.
After they all cleaned their plates, Lauren practically wrestled Sumi for the honor of clearing the table. She and Josh loaded the dishes and washed the pots and pans together.
“You’re doing great,” he whispered in a rare moment of picking up on the unspoken.
She let out a breath. “I’m so nervous.”
“Mom likes you. And the Kims love you.”
After tea and coffee, Josh announced it was time to go, his “time spent with loved ones” meter expired. A bit to Lauren’s surprise, Stephanie pulled her into a hug.
“We should have lunch,” she said. “So we can really get to know each other.”
“I would love that,” Lauren said.
When they got into her car, Josh turned to her. “You okay?” he asked.
“I’m wonderful. I love them. They’re so nice, Josh.”
“Yes.” He smiled.
“I hear you’ve never brought a girl home.”
“No. Definitely not one I wanted to marry,” he said.
There it was. That certainty. He looked at her a long minute, then kissed her on the lips, so gently. Joy filled her with a warm, buoyant, golden light.
“I love you,” she said, and they both laughed, then kissed, and kissed some more, and Lauren’s eyes were wet with tears of happiness.
He proposed on the first of May, a day when the blossoms on the crab apple trees were so thick they looked like pink whipped cream. He’d picked her up from work, and they walked hand in hand along the Providence River, just past RISD. Josh said he’d had a meeting with a company that day, explaining why he wore a suit she had never seen. The light was soft and golden, the breeze causing pink petals to drift and float, and then he was down on one knee, holding up a small velvet box.
The ring was an emerald-cut diamond set on either side with smaller diamonds, stunning in its simple beauty.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, and she just looked at him, smiling with more love in her heart than she knew it could hold.
“Damn right I will,” she said. Of course she would. It was just a formality. She was meant to be his wife, and he was destined to be her husband.
As they kissed, she made a vow. She would do everything in her power to make a beautiful, happy, meaningful life. The last thing she would ever do was break this man’s heart.
30
Joshua
Month eleven
January
THE LETTER HAD sat there for a few days now, throbbing like a wound in his mind. He dreaded reading it. He was dying to read it. But after this, there would only be one more, and once these stopped, he didn’t know how he would face the future. Couldn’t she have done this for two years? Five? Ten?
Finally, with a sigh, he sat down, patted the couch so Pebbles would leap up next to him, then opened the letter.
Hello, honey.
If you’re still reading these, I guess you still want to hear from me. I’m glad, Josh. I know one thing. Even if I’m dead, I would never really leave you. I don’t know what or how that looks right now, but I remember feeling my dad around me. I hope you can feel me there with you sometimes, just enough to reassure you.
So it’s been a good long while since I died. I hope your new normal isn’t too isolated or sad. I hate the idea that I’ve made your life sad. We had shitty luck with the IPF, but God, we had the best luck with each other.
I’ve been thinking a lot here on Cape Cod, listening to the ocean, trying to imagine what your life will be like eleven months after I die. I hope you at least gave some thought to meeting your biological father. If you do decide to meet him, I hope and pray it goes well. I hope whatever you decided, you know that the last thing you could ever be is disposable.
He had to stop for a minute and take a few breaths. She’d been right about that meeting. It had given him something. A face. A story to fill the void. A sense of peace. And it reinforced the knowledge that Ben Kim was the greatest man Josh had ever known. He felt even closer to him after meeting his biological father.
I think about when I first came to your apartment, and it was such a mess. Hopefully, I broke you of that habit and our place is neat and clean.
“It is, honey,” he said.
I remember how you went for days without going outside, how you never went to the rooftop unless I ordered you to. I remember how when we were dating, I’d be the only person you saw sometimes for days at a time.