Then Sarah was there; yes, yes, they were going to meet for lunch, but there was not enough air, damn it, she didn’t want to die. Sarah knelt beside her and held her hands, which were clawing at her throat. Bruce was sobbing and Louise was chanting, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” and all that seemed to be far away, because she was losing consciousness, oh, God. If she did that, would she die?

“Slow and easy, slow and easy,” Sarah said, her voice stern and calm. “Help is on the way. You’re going to be okay. Slow down, try to relax. Got an inhaler handy? Someone get her purse.”

Lauren locked eyes with Sarah, gasping like a fish out of water. Sarah was here. Sarah of the great sleepovers, Sarah who could do such good French braids, Sarah who cried so hard when Lauren’s dad died. She wanted to thank her, but all that came out was a high-pitched squeak.

“Back off,” Sarah snarled at the coworkers. Then the inhaler was in her hand, and she gave Lauren a hit, but it was hard to get the medicine into her lungs. Sarah repeated the action, then again. A little better breathing, but the chest pain . . .

“Josh,” she croaked.

Sarah pulled out her phone. “I’ve got this. You just breathe, easy and slow, easy and slow.” Her voice was calm and firm, and Lauren forced her brain to repeat easy and slow, easy and slow. “Josh, it’s Sarah. Meet us at the hospital. Lauren’s having trouble breathing. The ambulance is already here.”

Then the paramedics were in her view, and someone put a mask over her face, and there was medical talk, but everything was going gray. Sarah gripped her hand. “I’m right here. You’re gonna be fine. Stay awake, okay?”

Lauren fought against unconsciousness. It felt like a truck was parked on her chest. The mask was helping and smelled funny, but her chest, her chest. Your lung collapsed, said a part of her brain, but all she could think about was breathe, breathe, get the air in there, breathe, breathe, breathe. Then she was in the back of the ambulance, and they were moving. The paramedic talked to her, but she couldn’t hear, or wasn’t listening.

She forced her eyes as wide as possible, then felt the slip of her eyeballs as unconsciousness gained a step. No. Bite me. This was no gentle faint, no coughing fit, this was a battle, and she would fight it viciously, fight the suffocation, fight the grayness. No. No. I am not dying.

At the ER, doctors and nurses swarmed her. Patient collapsed at work, given three hits of albuterol, friend says a history of IPF, limited breath sounds both sides. Pneumothorax. Intubate. Then Lauren was floating, and a doctor was hunched over her face, opening her mouth.

Unconsciousness won, but it was okay, she was being helped, and then she was just . . . blank.

There were dreams, strange dreams and sounds of hissing and squeaking. She dreamed she could fly. She dreamed that she was lost and couldn’t find Sarah’s house, so she took an elevator down to a train but remembered that she was married and had to go home to Josh. She thought she was in Hawaii in their beautiful sunset house, but Hawaii smelled like flowers, and it smelled sharp and bitter here. She dreamed that she was in a tree house, but everyone had forgotten about her, and the ladder was gone, so she would have to live there, and there was no bathroom.

She dreamed her father was here, and she wanted to get on a train with him to go to New York City, but he said no.

She woke up, throat aching. She gagged. Josh and Jen were there, telling her it was okay, she was safe, she was getting better. Lauren tried to smile, but fell back asleep.

The next time she woke up, Josh was there, and her mother, looking like hell.

“Hi, honey,” Josh said, leaning forward. “You’re intubated, so don’t try to talk. You have pneumonia, and your lungs collapsed. But you’re better now. Just take it easy.”

“You almost died,” her mother wept. “Oh, honey, you almost died. I couldn’t live if you died! Don’t you know I already lost your father? Please don’t die!”

Josh didn’t take his eyes off her, but his perfect lips twitched, and she knew what he was thinking . . . Shut up, Donna. Or maybe he did actually say it.

She squeezed his hand. “It’s been four days,” he said, and oh, she loved his voice. “They kept you sedated so you could breathe better. But you’re okay.” He kissed her hand. “I love you.”

She fell back asleep.

They extubated that day or the next . . . time was slippery in the hospital. She was exhausted in a way she’d never felt before. Even moving her eyes or smiling took effort.

She had almost died. There was no avoiding that fact. It slept with her there in the hospital, amorphous no longer, but a sharp steel blade. It was real now. She woke up thinking about it, and she took it with her to sleep, and it was there in the foggy places in between.

Josh was always by her side. Always. Jen and Sarah were there often, and her mom, who cried a lot. When she was a little more alert, Darius brought Sebastian in, who was fascinated that her bed could go up and down with the push of a button.

Her voice was raspy, and she was given milkshakes that tasted grainy, nothing nearly as good as an Awful Awful from Newport Creamery, she said, so Josh went out and got her one. She’d lost weight, apparently. She’d always been curvy with a little tummy Josh said was the sexiest thing on earth . . . that tummy was flat now. Weird.

She’d had pneumonia, the resident told her. Nonobstructive atelectasis, bilateral . . . in other words, two collapsed lungs thanks to pneumonia combined with IPF. Her O2 sat was so low they intubated her and fought the pneumonia with IV antibiotics.

Dr. Bennett came. She’d been in daily, apparently, but Lauren didn’t remember. Her presence was reassuring; she projected an air of calm, like . . . like Florence Nightingale, or a homesteading wife from long ago who’d put a poultice on Lauren’s chest and a cool cloth on her head.

“I’m so glad you’re better, Lauren,” she said, pulling up a chair next to Josh. He needed a haircut and a shave, but damn, he was so handsome. Lauren smiled at him, reassured when he smiled back. “We almost lost you,” Dr. Bennett said.