He laughed. “Wow.”
“Another one bites the dust,” she said. “Hey, would it be okay if I put on some music? Some of Lauren’s favorites?”
“That would be great,” he said. She went over to the iPad and started clicking away.
Ben appeared next to him. “You did great, son,” the older man said. “She was . . . she was a special girl.” There were tears in his eyes.
Josh hugged him. “Thank you, Ben. For being my father. For helping me.”
“It’s an honor.”
Josh patted Ben’s shoulder. “Go get some food.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
It was good to have a little distance from the throng, but he was so, so glad they were all here. A year ago, and for the two years previous, he had only thought of them as Lauren’s.
This past year, they had become his as well, some more than others, but all of them taking him into their hearts.
He was lucky. They had walked with him through this long, lonely year. He was damn lucky, not just to have been Lauren’s husband, but to have all of these people as well.
Then he saw a movement in the far corner of the living room, and his heart jolted. For just one second, he saw his wife, wearing the long pink dress she’d worn so often that Cape Cod summer. Her hair was loose, and she wasn’t wearing her cannula. She was watching Sebastian and Octavia, who were playing on the couch, a faint smile on her lips.
Then she turned to him and smiled in full, that smile that just staggered him. Her brown eyes sparkled with laughter, as they had so often. For that one second, he saw once again all the love she had for him, all the joy.
He didn’t look away. He didn’t even breathe, hoping the moment would last forever. Then his eyes swam with tears, and when he blinked, she was gone.
32
Joshua
Month thirteen
March
HE DID NOT read the letter Sarah left in March.
Instead, he emailed Alex at Chiron Medical Enterprises and asked when would be a good time to visit. Then he called Cookie, who booked him a flight, and he flew to Singapore a week later.
At the Chiron headquarters, he told Alex and Naomi his terms. He’d take the job but would need to be based in Rhode Island, though he’d spend two weeks out of six in Singapore. Way to rack up those frequent-flier miles. They said yes immediately.
He was introduced around, given a first-class tour of the beautiful city, taken out for dinner and to meet the woman who would be his Singapore-based assistant. Over dinner, he told Alex and Naomi he was a widower, and it had been just over a year. They expressed their condolences, and no one said anything more about it.
His salary was less than he’d made some years, but it was steady, had good healthcare benefits, six weeks a year of vacation (because everyone but Americans knew the value of significant time off). He’d also get bonuses based on patent and design implementation. Alex and Naomi suggested he hire two engineers and an assistant to work in Providence.
It was time for a change.
33
Lauren
Fifty-seven months left
TWO YEARS AND one month after her father died, and the day after she graduated from Rhode Island School of Design, Lauren Rose Carlisle had made a list.
A really important list.
The past twenty-five months had been tumultuous. When her father died the spring of her sophomore year, she was thrown into a tarry pit of chaos and grief. Dad had been the world’s best, and his death was so shocking it changed Lauren’s world. The rest of her college time was spent in the weird limbo of loss where she went through life, eating and showering, doing projects and papers and hanging with her friends and sister. Sometimes she found herself laughing, and it came almost as a surprise. Sometimes, she’d stop abruptly in the middle of a sidewalk, asking herself, “Am I awake right now? Is this really my life? Are you seriously saying I will never see my father again?”
The fabulous Dave Carlisle, beloved by all, hated by none, devoted husband, adoring father, excellent neighbor, dog lover—sweet Dave Carlisle who ran two miles a day and didn’t eat dessert, just slumped over at his desk one afternoon, a half-finished container of strawberry yogurt next to him. No profound last words. No family holding his hand, whispering how much they loved him.
Lauren had worshipped her dad. No man was perfect, of course . . . except her dad. He was funny, corny, indulgent enough, strict enough, and went through life happily stunned at his great luck in marrying Donna, the love of his life. Daughters? What could be better than two perfect girls? Nothing! Lauren knew it was a rare dad who could make both his girls feel like they were his favorite. When Jen had sweet little Sebastian, just five months before her dad’s untimely death, he had cried at the sight of his grandson, and later sent flowers to his wife and both his girls, congratulating them on their new status in life—grandmother, mother, aunt.
At the age of twenty, Lauren would’ve been hard-pressed to find a single time her father had let her down, been irritable with her or shown her anything but love and wonder. Darius, Jen’s husband, had been pronounced “almost as wonderful as Daddy” by Jen herself, to which Darius said he’d have to up his game.
“Are you kidding, son? You’re fantastic,” her dad had said. “You just take care of my little girl.”
Lauren herself had ridiculous standards when it came to dating. She and Sarah would argue cheerfully over this; Sarah thought everyone deserved a chance, and Lauren . . . Lauren didn’t want to waste time on anyone who showed the slightest red flag. She had seen how a real man should treat a woman. She didn’t want anything less.
Her dad’s autopsy showed a massive aneurysm. It wasn’t fair. He had deserved better, the kind of guy who’d pull over to change a flat for anyone, who paid off the balance of a family’s layaway at Christmas. Dave Carlisle should’ve died heroically, running into a burning building to save babies and puppies (and he would have run in, and Lauren had no doubt he would’ve saved everyone). He should’ve died with a smile on his face, surrounded by the three women who loved him, his baby grandson on his chest, full of gratitude for the love he had earned in his life.
But . . . “life sucks and shit happens” and all the other bumper stickers told Lauren that she had to swallow this bitter pill—a baseball-sized pill—and keep living.
Sometimes grief brings a family together; sometimes it pushes each person into a corner. Sometimes it does both. She and Jen had always been good to each other; Jen was five years older, and Lauren adored her appropriately. Jen had set the bar unfairly high with her grades and career in environmental law, her beautiful, kind husband, her perfect baby, and Lauren cheerfully acknowledged this.