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.

But when their dad died, they grew closer, and the age gap mattered less. They called each other a few times a day, whispering their grief and shock, crying with each other. Lauren went to visit all the time, holding Sebastian, laughing at his sweetness, crying because her dad wasn’t there to see it. As time passed and the shock of grief lessened, they just got closer.

Lauren’s relationship with her mother, on the other hand, shriveled. Donna had always been the competent, brisk, all-knowing, all-powerful parent, but when her husband died, she crumbled. It was completely understandable. A love like Donner-n-Dave’s, as Rhode Islanders pronounced it, didn’t happen often. They had been the envy of all who knew them. Donna didn’t seem to notice that her daughters had also lost someone incredibly important. Her focus was on herself, which wasn’t exactly a surprise, as Jen and Lauren discussed. She’d been a good mother, totally solid, but not the kind who paid a lot of attention to her girls. As a teacher, her students ate up a lot of her patience. She wasn’t cruel . . . it was just that the girls (especially Lauren) were something of an afterthought. Husband, job, community, and oh, yeah, two daughters, too!

Lauren had always felt that if she were, say, kidnapped, it would take her mother a week or so to notice she was gone. “Shoot, where’s that Lauren got off to?” she might say, failing to notice the ransom note taped to the door.

But her dad . . . her dad would’ve charged to her rescue.

When he died, the family seemed diminished by a lot more than one-fourth. It was like 90 percent of them were dead, too.

Grief, you see, is lonely for everyone involved. Mom had lost her life partner. Jen didn’t have the luxury of grieving the way Lauren did, not with a baby to care for, and her sorrow had to be dealt with in bits and pieces. And Lauren had to live with the knowledge that Dad wouldn’t see all the important milestones of her adult life—graduation from college, job, first apartment, getting married, having kids. He was just . . . gone.