He bent his head. I miss you, he thought. I miss you so much. I don’t want to live without you anymore, Lauren. I’ve done a good job, haven’t I? Please come back. The letters are running out, and I need you. I can’t live without you anymore. It’s too hard.

He got up, walked to the water’s edge and stood there. A wave sloshed over his shoe, the bite of the Atlantic at first sharp, then numbing. He took a step in, his ankles and shins instantly frigid. Pebbles barked in delight, leaping next to him. Another step, so that the waves crashed above his knees. The undertow was strong, and when it tugged at him, he backed out.

“Come on, Pebbles,” he said, and she obeyed. The wind was fierce, and his ears burned with the cold. He didn’t want Pebbles to get too cold. He certainly didn’t want her to be sucked out by the ocean.

They walked back up the path to the house. Josh let Pebbles into the car, and she decided then it was time to shake. With his shoes still squishing water, his pants plastered to his legs, he started the car and drove home as the darkness deepened.

29

Lauren

Fifty-one months left

November

Dear Dad,

I hope you’ve been watching, because you’re going to be a father-in-law again pretty soon! Sure, sure, Darius is perfect, but I’m 10,000 percent sure you’re going to love Josh just as much.

 I’m in love, Daddy! First time ever, not counting Orlando Bloom (who will always have a corner of my heart, of course). But everything I ever hoped for is here with Josh. Everything. He makes me feel safe. Cherished. Beautiful. Like nothing bad could ever happen as long as we’re together.

 Check us out, Daddy. I know you’ll approve.

 Love,

 Lauren

Fate. Destiny. Guardian angels. Tarot cards. Voodoo.

Whatever the case, Lauren knew that dating Joshua Park was just a formality. As soon as she saw him at the Hope Center, she knew—she just knew—he would be hugely important in her life. Their first date had only confirmed that. She had a lot to learn about the details of his life, but he was, as they say, the one.

They were extremely different. He worked alone, staring at his computer screen, headphones on, talking with a slew of subcontractors he rarely saw in person. He had one employee, a virtual assistant named Cookie, whom he’d never met but who handled things like his travel arrangements, meetings, billing and other mysterious assistant things. His business card said only Joshua Park, Biomedical Engineer.

In the years since their first and less-than-pleasant meeting, Joshua had gotten a master’s of science with a focus on biomedical design from Brown and a PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT. You know. As one does. That thing he’d designed when he was eighteen, in his second year at RISD, because of course he started college young . . . that thing was a special chair geared for people who had to sit for long periods of time due to mobility issues. The chair monitored the occupant’s heart rate, blood oxygen level and weight; provided moisture detection in case of incontinence, excessive sweating or edema leakage; and had vibration settings to stimulate lower extremity circulation. It could cool or warm the person seated in it, and could also boost them out if they wanted it, and lower them back in. It was also quite comfy and fun, which Lauren knew, because it was one of two chairs in Joshua’s apartment.

The design had sold for just under $10 million.

Thud.

“What did you do with the money?” Lauren had asked when, a month or two into their courtship, he’d volunteered this information.

“I paid my mom back for college. Set some aside for grad school. Banked it. Started a 401(k). Set up a scholarship. You know.”

“No, I don’t, since I’ve never made ten million dollars.” She smiled. “Did you do anything fun?”

He thought about that. “I sent my mom on a vacation,” he offered.

Turned out, he’d sent his mom and her best friends, Sumi and Ben Kim, on a monthlong vacation, first-class airfare and hotels, so they could visit Korea, Thailand and Australia. Private tours in the big cities, a designated credit card so he could pay for all their expenses.

“Did they love it?” Lauren asked, hands clasped in front of her.

“They did.” And that was that. But he smiled, and his smiles could say more than ten thousand words.

Joshua Park owned his apartment—a soulless but expensive two-bedroom in a new building near the river. It was a sharp contrast to her tiny but beautiful loft in a refurbished mill building, complete with original creaky floors and brick walls. While her apartment was cozy and charming, Josh’s was bleak, aside from the view of the capitol’s beautiful dome. He had a kitchen table but no kitchen chairs, two plates, two forks, two glasses. His living room held the medical chair, a couch, a huge TV, and a giant desk with five different computers. His bedroom contained a bed with one pillow. No art, no rugs, no throw pillows. He didn’t have a car but did have a retirement fund.

Aside from food, she couldn’t see that he spent money at all, adopting a painfully dull cargo shorts and T-shirt look that made him look seventeen years old.

“So being a spendthrift,” she said. “Not a problem, I’m guessing?”

“The money’s there if I need it,” he said. “But I can’t think of anything I need right now.”

“Except for the love of a good woman,” she said. “Which money can’t buy, of course.”

“I have that,” he said, and her heart thrilled, because they hadn’t said those words yet. Then he grinned. “My mom. She’s a very good woman.” And because he was so serious and quiet much of the time, his joke meant all the more.

Oh, she had it bad.

His second patent, which he finished while still at RISD, was a needle that could sense blood flow under the skin of newborns and children, minimizing bad sticks and bruising (and misery). He could’ve sold that one; instead, he made the design free, as Jonas Salk had done with the polio vaccine. He co-designed a battery-powered tool that replaced the old-fashioned mallet orthopedic surgeons used in joint replacement, then reworked the design for pediatric patients. Now he was working on a warming bed for premature babies that would sense drops in their heart rate and breathing.