chocolate,” he said, pulling back a little. “Shame on you.”
“Is it my fault you left me alone in the house with Fran’s salted caramels?” she asked. “I think we both knew what would happen.”
“Those were hidden.”
“Not very well. In a shoebox in a suitcase on the top shelf of the closet? Please. You’re such an amateur.”
“You have a nose like a bloodhound.”
“Yes, yes, talk dirty to me,” she said, laughing. “Come on. Unwrap your present and make love to your wife.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and he did, sliding his hands over her silky skin. God, he loved being married. He loved Lauren, loved this room and this bed and the fact that she’d go to the effort of lighting candles and scattering rose petals and undressing and finding a red ribbon. Her skin smelled like almonds and oranges from her shower gel. She’d painted her toenails red. All for him.
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he whispered against her neck.
“Ditto. Except woman,” she said, and she started laughing, and when they kissed again, they were both smiling.
In love wasn’t a phrase. It was how they lived, wrapped in the warm, soft blanket of mutual adoration, and in this moment, on this evening, nothing else mattered. They were untouchable, golden, immortal. He would love her the rest of his life, and he knew, with absolute certainty, that she would love him the rest of hers.
However long or short a time that would be.
3
Joshua
Twelve days later
February 26
WAS IT WEIRD to look for your wife at her funeral?
But he was. He kept glancing around for Lauren, waiting for her to come in and tell him what to say to all these people, what to do during this service. Where to put his hands. How to hug back.
She would know. That was the problem. She knew all about these things—people, for example. How to act out in the world. At her wake last night, she would’ve told him what to say as her friends cried and held on to his hand and hugged him, making him uncomfortable and stiff and sweaty. Classic spectrum problem. He didn’t like crowds. Didn’t want to hug anyone except his wife. Who was dead.
She would’ve told him what to wear today. As it was, he was wearing the one suit he owned. The same one he’d worn to propose to her, the same one he wore to their wedding three years ago. Was it a horrible thing to wear your wedding suit to your wife’s funeral? Should he have gone with a different tie? Was this suit bringing shit up for her mother and sister?
This pew was hard as granite. He hated wooden chairs. Pews. Whatever.
Donna, Lauren’s mother, sobbed. The sound echoed through the church. Same church where Josh and Lauren had gotten married. If they’d had kids, would they have baptized them here? Josh was pretty much an atheist, but if Lauren had wanted church as a part of their life, he’d go along with it.
Except she was dead.
It had been four days. One hundred and twelve hours and twenty-three minutes since Lauren died, give or take some seconds. The longest time of his life, and also like five seconds ago.
Lauren’s sister, Jen, was giving the eulogy. It was probably a good eulogy, because people laughed here, cried there. Josh himself couldn’t quite make out the words. He stared at his hands. When Lauren had put his wedding ring on his finger at their wedding, he couldn’t stop looking at it. His hand looked complete with that ring on. Just a plain gold band, but it said something about him. Something good and substantial. He wasn’t just a man . . . he was a husband.
Rather, he had been a husband. Now he was a widower. Utterly useless.
So much for being a biomedical engineer with numerous degrees and a reputation in healthcare technology. He’d had two years and one month to find a cure for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that slowly filled the lungs with scar tissue, choking off the healthy parts for breathing. He had failed. Not that a cure was easy, or someone would’ve done it before. The only devices on the market were designed to push air into lungs, work chest muscles or clear mucus, and those weren’t Lauren’s problems.
He hadn’t figured it out. He hadn’t created something or found a drug trial that would kill off those fucking fibers and scars. Since the day of her diagnosis, he’d devoted himself to finding