His mom was happy-crying through the whole thing. It was so sweet. I didn’t peg her as a crier, and there she was. She blew me a kiss as I walked up the aisle.

 Daddy . . . when we said our vows, Josh’s voice was so gentle and . . . perfect. Neither of us cried. It was almost too important for tears. I looked into his eyes, and I never meant anything more in my life when I said I would love, honor and cherish him all the days of my life.

 The reception was so much fun. Even Mom had fun. There were toasts, and Jen bawled and was also hilarious, and we all danced till we dropped. Seriously, I thought I was going to faint at one point, the downside of wearing a wedding gown. But at one point, when we were slow-dancing, Josh whispered, “You know what I want?” and I said, “What’s that, honey?” and he said, “I want to take my wife home.”

 And Daddy, that was everything. Wife. Husband. Home. Us.

 Yes, he carried me over the threshold.

 It was perfect. I’m so happy, Dad. Know that. Feel that. Your little girl is so happy.

In retrospect, the incident during their honeymoon was the first big warning.

Their rented house sat on a huge cliff overlooking the ocean and was impossibly pretty. The flowers, the wild roosters crowing at all hours, the abrupt and glorious drenching rains followed inevitably by a rainbow, and the clear, warm water . . . it truly was paradise. How did people visit Hawaii and leave? Lauren didn’t know.

Plus the great married sex. There was a safety now, a comfort and security that gave her the ability to let go of any inhibitions, knowing that if it was awkward or silly or just didn’t work out (for example, her pathetic attempt to talk dirty), they’d laugh and move on and learn together. Long hours in bed, walking naked around the house, eating pineapples and mangoes, feeling like a goddess in this tropical utopia with her man . . . the happiness brought her to tears sometimes.

Forever. All the days of my life. Forsaking all others. The beautiful words of the wedding ceremony kept echoing in her head, so full of promise and meaning, enacted every time they made love, every time they talked. They had deep conversations about their childhoods, and she learned things she’d never known about him, and told him things she’d never told anyone, and their love deepened and grew even more.

At night, if he fell asleep first, she’d stare at his beautiful face, her heart thrumming with love. She would take such good care of him. Make him so happy. He deserved everything, her hardworking, earnest, brilliant, quiet, kind and sometimes awkward husband, and she would give it to him.

They ate sushi and poké and tried to pronounce long Hawaiian words properly. The beach was an easy walk downhill from their cliff house, and the walk back was good cardio, enough to make her winded and sweaty. Every day, they swam and played in the waves, lay on the sand and laughed when it rained on them and just waited till the sun came back out a few minutes later. They tried surfing . . . Josh was physically perfect but adorably clumsy, but Lauren caught a few waves, and the feeling of being propelled by the force of the ocean made her giddy.

One day, they drove to the western side of the island to see the Nāpali state park and maybe Hanakapi’ai Falls. It was a rugged trail, but they both loved hiking. They packed food and lots of water, and got lost in paradise. Holding hands when they could, walking through the thick forest, swatting mosquitoes. The birdsong was almost deafening.

At the base, they stood in awe at the four-hundred-foot falls, the mist shimmering, the walls of the hills bursting with moss and ferns that grew right out of the shale. They swam in the frigid water, laughing and wrapping their arms around each other. Ate the picnic lunch they’d packed, then sat in a silence that wrapped them in honey-golden contentment and wonder.

But the ascent was harder; a brief rain shower had turned the trail to slick mud. They stopped to rest a few times, and Lauren felt so tired she wondered aloud if she could just lie down and grab a nap. Her limbs felt heavy and achy, but what choice did she have? When they finally made it to the car, both damp with sweat, she was breathing fast and hard. Josh, damn him, caught his breath almost immediately. She shouldn’t be this winded, she thought. She was in great shape, she’d drunk plenty of water, had two granola bars, a sandwich and mango slices, she . . . whoops . . . things were graying out, and she seemed to be flowing down toward the earth, just like the waterfall.

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground, staring at a flower, because there were flowers everywhere on this island. So pretty. They should move here. Also, it was hard to breathe. Her damn asthma. It felt like there was a leather belt cinched around her chest, getting tighter with every second.

“Honey! Lauren! Honey!” Josh was there, and she tried to smile, but her chest hurt, and her breath squeaked.

“Inhaler,” she whispered. He was already fumbling in the backpack and quickly pulled it out and handed it to her. She took a hit, then another, and her breathing eased a bit.

“Your lips are blue,” he said, and his voice was shaking.

A small crowd had gathered. “Want me to call 911?” someone asked.

“No,” she said at the same time Josh said yes. He scooped her up and carried her to the side of the road to wait.

“Thank God you . . . work out, babe,” she said, still puffing. “It’d be so embarrassing . . . if you had to drag me.” Big breath. “For you, that is. Not me.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite fool her. He was worried.

Blue lips. That was a first. Residual cold from the swim? The elevation? Some weird allergic reaction to the fruit?

The EMTs gave her oxygen and said fainting wasn’t that uncommon after this hike, especially if a person wasn’t in great shape.

Rude. She was in great shape. She just had asthma. “Ride in ambulance, check!” she said as they unloaded her at the hospital. “This was thrilling. Thanks, guys! Mahalo!” They did that cool thumb-pinkie wave and wished her well.

Josh’s face was somber, but she reassured him. The ER doctor wasn’t worried. He gave her a five-day course of prednisone, listened to her lungs and said she sounded like someone with asthma. “It’s probably the exertion coupled with the difference in humidity, but everything else looks good,” he said. “Make sure you drink lots of water and have a good dinner tonight. Your oxygen saturation is ninety-five, which is on the low side of normal. You might be a little anemic, given that you’re a woman who gets her period, which can also cause a drop in O2 sats. You said you’re on your honeymoon, so if you’ve been hitting the mai tais, back off on that, because alcohol can make you dehydrated, which doesn’t help anything.”