Pack Up the Moon Page 115

“I . . . love you,” she whispered.

“I love you, too. With all my heart. With my all lungs and liver and pancreas.”

“Kidneys . . .”

“And kidneys. Both of them.”

She felt him crying, felt his warm tears sliding against her temple. The breathing was harder now, and she tried to sneak the air in around the scars, the fibers, the fluid. Don’t pant. Don’t fight. Don’t scare him. Die gently. Another hit of morphine so he wouldn’t hear her gasping, feel her body struggling. Help me, Daddy. The urge to struggle passed.

“I’m so . . . lucky,” she managed, and Josh sobbed then.

“I love you, Lauren. I love you so much. You’re everything to me. I’m the lucky one.”

“Beautiful . . . life.” Her chest wasn’t working anymore. “Love . . . you.” One more breath. Just a little more air, please, Dad, for her last words.

Go for it, baby.

With what felt like a superhuman effort, Lauren pulled air into her poor battered, exhausted lungs, hearing the squeak and rasp, and willed those last remaining spaces in her lungs to open. She looked at her husband. “Thank . . . you.”

Because what else was there to say?

And though his eyes were wet with tears, she saw that flame in the dark, saw all the feelings he had for her, and she truly was so lucky, the luckiest woman on earth, because she had been loved by Joshua Park.

“It’s okay if you go,” he whispered. “You’ve fought enough. I love you. I’ll always love you, Lauren. Rest now, honey. I’m right here with you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

 

* * *

THOUGH HER EYES are closed, Lauren can see the strange, liquid golden light, so warm, so alive. She hears her father’s voice, feels him close to her. She knew he would come. She knew it.

She can see herself, lying in the bed, Josh holding her close, Pebbles on her other side. Her husband looked so ruined, holding her against him. Her own face, Lauren notes, is white. But she isn’t gasping. She isn’t clawing and scared. She’s . . . quiet. Not quite gone yet, though.

Her poor body. It had worked so hard. It had done so well. She’s proud of it, grateful to it for putting up with all that it had. So many healthy years, so many happy times, walking, swimming, cuddling, holding, carrying. Images flash through her mind—jumping rope with Sarah as kids. Hiding in Jen’s closet and scaring her. Pushing Sebastian on the swing. Holding Octavia. Swimming in the ocean with Josh. Hugging Josh. Making love with Josh. Laughing with Josh.

That body deserves to rest now.

Her new self is strong and warm. There’s no pain, no weight, no fatigue, no chest pain.

I’ve been so happy, she tells her father. He knows this.

Everyone should get to die like this, in the arms of the person they loved best. Josh’s love shines out of him. Lauren watches as he pushes her hair back from her face and kisses her lips, and the light in her new self bursts out, filling her, filling the room.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

It’s time for her to go now. Her father agrees.

One more second, one more for Josh. She wills her love into Josh with the last beat of her heart, and then she is ready.

She sees the knowledge hit Josh. He crumples, laying his head on her chest. Her old body is done, but she’s more here than ever.

He’ll be all right. She knows this.

The light grows even brighter, so bright she can’t see Josh anymore, but she feels him inside every molecule of her, the pulse and thrum of his life.

She is the light now, and though her old body is done, and her old self is gone, her true self would never leave him.

He was, and is, and always would be, the love of her life.

36

Joshua

Month seventeen

July

IT HAD TAKEN some time to get over that final letter. To remember her last day in all its excruciating, beautiful detail.

In some ways, it was like losing her all over again. But when he reread the letters, when he saw the scope of what she’d done, he was so, so grateful for her kindness, her forethought. She had spent her last months thinking about his life after hers, and how to help him.

And she had. Because of her, he had Radley as a friend. He had a new job because he’d gone to that conference. He was part of the community, more than he’d ever been. He owned a new house that, someday, would be his children’s home. He knew karate.

He was so grateful that, for that first year without her, his wife’s love had walked beside him.

And he was better. He was doing fine. He’d invited all of Lauren’s family to have pizza at his offices one night, and pushed Octavia and Sebastian around in the comfy office chairs, making them shriek with glee. The next week, when Jen had her third baby, he’d visited her and his new baby niece in the hospital, and he didn’t cry. They asked him to be godfather to Leah Grace, and of course he said yes.

A few weeks ago, he’d flown to Singapore and spent two weeks there, working with the team, attending meetings, going out for dinner. The company put him up in a swanky rental apartment with a balcony overlooking the sparkling city and told him it was his whenever he needed to come out. They showed him the design for an MRI-guided ultrasound device that would ablate tiny particles of brain matter for people with persistent tremors. It had the potential to treat epilepsy with some modifications, too. Within an hour, Josh had tweaked the design so it required two fewer parts and would cost significantly less to produce.

Back in Rhode Island, he packed up the apartment, putting all but two photos of him and Lauren in a box. He put her more valuable jewelry in a safe-deposit box to give to Sebastian, Octavia and Leah someday. He kept a few things from his married life to bring to his new house, then invited Lauren’s friends to come and take whatever they wanted—a rug, a lamp, a painting.

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