There were the new realities of IPF. She learned to plan her day carefully, so as not to expend too much energy and have a setback. She and Josh bought a lovely teak bench for the shower, and a grab bar, in case she got dizzy or weak. Josh got her a beautiful leather bag to hold her portable oxygen, which she didn’t need every day . . . but it was nice that she had a bag that didn’t yell medical device even if she often had a plastic cannula in her nose.

College Hill was too steep for her to walk to work now. But she did walk around the Brown campus at lunch, because staying fit was important. Louise or Santino usually went with her; Louise was sharp and funny, but Santino was hilarious. He had the best stories about the women he dated—like the one he’d met for the first time, went back to her apartment and found pictures of himself taped to the fridge. Or the one who asked if he’d like to wax her lady bits as foreplay. Like most people who saw her frequently, her condition became normal to them (though Lori Cantore treated her like she was giving away gift-wrapped leprosy).

Bruce the Mighty and Beneficent had brought a twin bed into the staff lounge and made a sign that read Lauren’s sleeping, so fuck off in case she needed a nap. Lori filed a complaint (sigh), and Bruce called Lauren into his office and made her and Lori Cantore watch as he fed the complaint into the shredder. Dear, dear Bruce.

She, Sarah and Asmaa took a gentle yoga class a few times a week, which was great for keeping her muscles strong, which in turn helped her oxygenation. She went out a couple of times a month with her friends or sister, saw her mom and Stephanie at least once a week. She was planning these days, unsure of how much longer life would be normal, or if a bad flu season would force her to stay in the house for months.

Jen brought Sebastian over every Thursday night so they could babysit while Jen and Darius went out. Lauren loved those nights, Sebastian’s funny little questions about how the water got into the tub, or if elephants sleep in nests, or if he could stay with them for nine or seventeen days in a row. He’d fall asleep in their bed, and she and Josh would lie on either side of him, pretending to watch a movie but staring at his perfect skin and long lashes, curly hair and sweet little hands. Their sadness at not being able to have kids went unspoken, but when a few tears slipped down her cheeks, Josh would reach over and wipe them away and tell her he loved her.

Her medical stuff became routine—respiratory therapy, which involved huffing, pursed lips, diaphragmatic breathing, and her favorite, mucus expulsion, which was just as sexy as it sounded. She had pulmonary function tests, blood work and checkups.

The goal was to keep things steady. What lung space she had lost to the fibrosis and scarring was gone forever. Every time she got pneumonia, the therapist warned, she’d lose a little more.

Meanwhile, Josh was . . . amazing. Calm, caring, funny and, yes, sometimes sad. The punching bag was used three or four nights a week as a proactive measure, and when he came up, sweaty, his hands wrapped, his mood light, she was proud of them both. He got better at talking about those pesky feelings—she did wonder if she was the first person who’d helped him with that, since she suspected Steph had simply told him yes, life could be unfair, next question please? The wall-punching incident had loosened something in him.

“I was thinking about the Great Beyond,” she said one night over a vegetarian dinner so loaded with garlic it had cleared out her sinuses. She tried to keep her voice light, but his head snapped up.

“Are you feeling okay these days?”

“Yes! I feel great today.” She cleared her throat. “When my dad died, I thought about it a lot, that’s all. And . . . I’ve been thinking about it again.”

“I don’t want you to think about it.”

She gave him a look.

“Right. Okay. Tell me more.”

She loved him so much. “Well, I think it must be this amalgamation of everything you’ve ever loved and wanted to do. Like . . . you get to be an eagle. Or a baby giraffe.”

“Or a shark.”

“No one wants to be a shark, Josh.”

“Why? No fear, do whatever you want, eat whatever you want . . .” He attempted a smile.

“Kill seals and unsuspecting swimmers? No. There are no sharks in the Great Beyond, Joshua.” She pretended to scowl.

“Okay. Well, what else is there?”

“You get to see all the people you love who’ve died. Obviously. I’ve got my dad, my grandparents, my great-aunt Mimi. A boy in fourth grade who had leukemia. Peter. We sat on the bus together.” She hadn’t thought of him in years. Poor little Peter. They’d held hands once. Her eyes stung.

“What else is in the Great Beyond?” Josh asked. “Food, I imagine.”

“A make-your-own-sundae bar for sure.”

“How about that sushi place we went to in Hawaii? That’s worthy of the GB.”

She smiled, feeling her shoulders drop a little. Her ending was part of their life now. And she was scared . . . not so much of dying herself, but of making everyone she loved so sad. And yes, of course of dying. Dying badly, that was. Would she go out gasping with air hunger, that wretched term? Clawing at the sheets? Or intubated and drugged so she couldn’t say some profoundly moving last words?

“I really believe my dad will be there at the end,” she said, and then she did cry.

Josh came over and picked her up and held her on his lap. He kissed her cheek and smoothed her hair and said, “Don’t be such a loser, babe,” and she sputtered in surprise, then laughed.

Thank God for him. Thank God.

Being married to a sick person got Josh a lot of attention from idiot acquaintances and, alas, her mother. “You’re a saint, Josh. I don’t know how you do it,” her mom said one day when she insisted on coming to a doctor’s appointment. Lauren was having her blood drawn to check her arterial gases.

“I’m actually sleeping with Tyler here,” Josh said, nodding solemnly at the phlebotomist. “Best sex of my life.”