“There’s no cure at the moment, no,” Dr. Bennett said. Lauren didn’t want to call her Kwana anymore. Nope! They weren’t going to be friends.

So if there was no cure, then that meant . . . well, it meant she’d have to deal with this the rest of her life.

Huh.

“I don’t want you to panic,” Dr. Bennett said. “This is a serious illness, but you’re only twenty-six, Lauren. We honestly have no prediction for how well you’ll do. Okay? You’re very healthy otherwise. Let’s not envision the worst just yet. I’m starting you on a medication called Ofev, which is very effective in slowing the fibers and scar tissue. A lot of patients swear by a combination of Chinese herbs, so I want you to try that as well. I’ve got all the information here.”

“Okay,” Lauren said, slightly reassured. “Great. Um . . . what’s my long-term prognosis?”

“I don’t want to jump the gun here.”

“Tell me anyway,” she said.

Kwana looked at Josh, who gave a small nod. “Well, our last line of defense is a lung transplant.”

“Would I be okay then?”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we have to, okay?”

Lauren looked at Josh.

Skin still gray. Jaw locked. Infrequent blinking. Oh, no. No, no. No thank you.

Josh knew a lot about medicine. A lot.

“Am I . . . am I going to get better?” she whispered.

Dr. Bennett leaned forward, folding her hands together. “Lauren, I’m very sorry, but as your husband said, there is no cure for this. There are some promising treatments on the horizon, but right now, I have to be honest with you. With IPF, the fibers keep growing until breathing becomes impossible. A lung transplant would be the final step. Otherwise, it’s a terminal disease.”

The world stopped. No sound, no smells, nothing. Just complete stillness.

Terminal. Final.

Terminal?

Lauren swallowed. Her eyes felt huge and cold. “So . . . I’m going to die?”

“We’re not sure what your trajectory is going to be. There are only a handful of known cases in people so young.”

“Can you answer the question? Am I going to die from this?” That loud voice, so rude.

Kwana didn’t take offense. “We can’t make any predictions. Especially in your case, since you’re not even thirty.”

“No predictions except that I’ll die?” she squeaked.

“She will not die from this,” Josh said, his voice hoarse and fierce, and for a second, hope leaped in Lauren’s heart. She was married to a certified genius who just happened to make medical devices. He would figure this out in a matter of weeks, Kwana.

“This is a lot to process,” Dr. Bennett said. “I recommend that you stay off Google and just read the literature in this packet.”

“Why?” Lauren’s voice was hard and loud.

“Because you should get your information from experts in the field,” she said, handing over a folder. “Trust me.”

She didn’t remember leaving the building or getting into the car, but she must have, because Josh was driving, and they were gripping each other’s hands, hard. Lauren stared out the window, vaguely registering the familiar sites—the Big Blue Bug, Rhode Island’s most famous resident. The capitol dome, the Superman building—so called because in the old television show, Superman had jumped over it, making Providence famous. There was Kennedy Plaza, the old Brown and Sharpe building. They pulled onto their street, into the parking lot, got out and walked into the building in silence, still clutching hands. She started toward the stairs, then walked through the lobby instead and pushed the button for the elevator.

The stairs would leave her breathless.

Tears gathered in her throat, and she swallowed hard.

The second they walked into the apartment, they both went to the couch and opened their laptops, almost exactly in sync, the only sounds their fingers on the keyboard.

Yeah, so Googling wasn’t a great idea. She had to give Dr. Bennett credit for that.

The prognosis for a person with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis was three to five years. Life post–lung transplant, so long as there were no complications, could last as long as five years. But lung transplants were tricky.

So, best-case scenario, Lauren might live to see forty.

But probably not.

She felt dizzy. Was this a dream? Was this whole life a dream, with her wonderful husband and all their happiness, their beautiful apartment, the honeymoon, the trip to Paris? Would she wake up in her childhood bed, groggy and confused, Dad still alive?

She squeezed her hands together, because pinching herself felt too cliché. If she was thinking about things like clichés, then it couldn’t really be happening, right? Also, the pillow on the chair across from her needed plumping. And she was hungry. Grilled cheese, maybe? So she probably wasn’t stuck with a fatal disease. She probably wasn’t dying.

Words from the computer floated in her brain. Final treatment. Terminal. No cure. Breathing becomes impossible. Three to five years. Quality of life.

Three to five years.

Last week, they’d gone sledding with Sebastian. Jen told her they were trying for another baby, and they got so silly, talking about celebrity baby names. And sure, Lauren had gotten out of breath laughing. But so had . . . yeah, no. She was the only one.

For a second, that moment came back to her, the warmth of her sister’s house, the cocoa, the laughter . . . the way she couldn’t seem to fill up her lungs with enough air.

Because her lungs were filling with fibers.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.

“Let’s go to bed,” Joshua said, and she jumped at the sound of his voice. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, but he was right. Bed was the only option. They stripped down to their underwear and got in under the puffy duvet, then wrapped their arms around each other so tight it hurt.