Nope. No, he wasn’t. “I . . . uh . . . I think I need a breather.”

And then his knees buckled, and the pavement was gritty against his cheek. Pebbles licked his ear with great vigor.

The woman’s face appeared suddenly, her dark ponytail touching the ground. “Yikes,” she said. “Should I call 911?”

“I think . . . I fainted.”

A medic on a bicycle was there almost instantly. “Stay where you are, sir,” he ordered, kneeling next to him and taking his pulse. “Another one down,” he said into the radio on his collar. “Told you we’d have at least a dozen.” He looked down at Josh. “Sir? What day is it?”

“Saturday. I didn’t eat this morning,” Josh said. “I’m fine. I’m dehydrated.” He tried to get up.

The guy pushed him back down. “Stay here. I need to assess you. You people make my job hard. A 5K in this weather isn’t for everyone.”

Faint-shaming. Not cool. “Sorry.” Then again, Josh and his ilk also kept the guy employed, so maybe the EMT should be a little more gracious.

“Do you know where you are, sir?” People ran past, gawking, telling him to hang in there.

“Yes. I’m in Providence, Rhode Island, home of the fourth-largest self-supporting marble dome in the world, doing a run to raise awareness for rare diseases. Can I at least sit on the sidewalk?”

The medic and Duffy’s owner helped him to his feet, and one of the spectators quickly offered him a chair. He sat, and the medic took his blood pressure. “Ninety over fifty, sir. You are definitely dehydrated. And running on an empty stomach? That’s just dumb.”

“Thanks. I know. Sorry.” It was embarrassing to be the subject of so much attention. He petted Pebbles’s head, and she licked him some more.

“Do you want me to wait with you?” Duffy’s owner asked.

“No.” God no. “You keep at it. Thank you.”

“No worries! Sorry to leave you. It’s just that my brother’s waiting for me at the finish line.”

“Have fun,” he said, and she was gone. Good stride, nice muscles in her legs. People were pretty decent, if you gave them a chance. He needed to remember that more.

Josh was given an electrolyte drink, made to sit with an ice pack on his head, then released with a warning from the surly medic. Josh thanked the person who’d loaned him the chair (another nice, decent person), then cut across a block to get to the finish line back on PC’s campus.

“There you are!” Jen exclaimed. “Everything okay? We heard someone fainted!”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just took it slow. The heat, you know?”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. It seemed to be a thing of hers.

His mom, Ben, Sumi and Donna appeared; Donna had called his mother, they said, and the Kims tagged along, too. The Kims were lugging coolers and two picnic baskets, never ones to skimp on food. They found a spot under a tree and ate, and Josh felt significantly better. Octavia, who finally had learned to walk, toddled around, anointing everyone with drooly kisses and buttercups. In the distance, the white-robed priests strolled the campus, and Pebbles ran off to intercept a Frisbee.

“You doing all right, son?” Ben asked, sitting next to him.

“Yeah.”

“Missing your wife, of course.”

Josh nodded. Ben put his arm around his shoulders.

“She was a flower,” the older man said.

“She was a whole field of flowers,” he said, and Ben nodded.

Neither said anything else, and Josh was grateful for the silence and the company. Ben was the only one who could pull that off. Silence was good. Silence let him imagine his wife here, playing with the kids, chasing them around, giving piggyback rides. Well, of course she’d been too weak for that. But in his mind, she was healthy, and the kids begged for more, and she’d chase them and roar and swoop them up in her arms until she flopped down on the grass next to him. She’d put her head in his lap, maybe, and he would feel real again. Not this fake version of himself, the ghost of Lauren’s husband.

But once, he had been Lauren’s husband. He was proud of that. The two feelings would have to make peace.

“I should get going,” he said. He stood up, helped Ben to his feet and gave him a brief hug.

He was the first to leave, but the urge to get home was strong. He stood up, fist-bumped Sebastian and then Octavia and steeled himself for the goodbye rounds.

“I left something under your door,” Sarah said. “I would’ve brought it if I’d known you were coming.” The eyebrow lifted again.

A letter. A Lauren letter. God, he needed that today. So much.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll text you about getting together.”

He said his goodbyes and headed out. As he walked away, he felt his shoulders drop and the tension leave his legs.

Peopling was hard. It was worth it about half the time, but it took a lot out of him. Pebbles seemed to agree, because she curled up in a ball in the back seat of the car on the way home.

The letter was waiting when he got there.

Josh, #5

This time, he didn’t wait. He tore it open right there in the foyer, despite that fact that his shirt was salty with dried sweat. He was desperate to hear her words.

Dear Joshua Park,

I love you. I love you! I love you so much. I love that you’re half-Swedish. I love that you look nothing like a Swede, not because I have anything against blond hair and blue eyes, but because it’s just cool that you’re a black-haired boy. I love your arms. I love your talented hands. I love that Mrs. Kim taught you to cook. I love how smart you are, even when you tune me out because you’re in your mind palace. I love that you never know what day it is. I love you. You are the best husband in the entire world. No. The entire planetary system, and hell yes, I’m including Pluto on that list.