“Yeah. It’s too big for one person.”
Radley sat back. “Well, Joshua, that’s incredibly kind of you. But you won’t be alone forever. You’ll find someone again.”
“I’m not . . . it’s only been eleven and a half months.” He swallowed. “I would love to have you. If not you, I’d probably find someone else. A tenant or something. I . . . I might be traveling more in the future, and it would be good to have someone here when I’m gone. Dog care and . . . that kind of thing.” He paused. “Companionship.”
Radley sat quietly for a minute. “My lease runs out in March. We’d have to have ground rules about privacy and all that. You might get sick of me.”
“True.” He felt his lips tug in a smile.
“Maybe we can do a trial run. Six months, and if it’s not working or either of us feels uncomfortable, no hard feelings. I mean, I need my own space, too. And I’d insist on paying rent. A token amount, but still.”
“Okay.”
They looked at each other, then Radley leaped to his feet and hugged him. “Oh, my God, this is so exciting! Can I go see my floor?”
Josh laughed, and Radley ran upstairs. “This house is fucking beautiful!” he yelled behind him.
Good. He wouldn’t be alone. Radley never talked about it, but Josh knew money was tight. This would be a win for them both.
As ever, he thought of Lauren. You would love him, he thought. He’s my best friend, outside of you.
In two weeks, it would be their fourth wedding anniversary. And right on the heels of that, the first anniversary of her death.
A year. Would the grief magically lift? Would it get worse? He supposed he was about to find out.
* * *
ON FEBRUARY 14, Josh started drinking wine at noon. Funny that a year ago, he had been a teetotaler. Well. Widowers deserved to drink, especially on a crap day like today. It was dark and sleeting out, the perfect atmosphere for misery. Nothing like New England’s shitty winter weather to underscore the mood. He went into his bedroom and brought the dogwood tree out to the living room and sat it next to the couch.
“Let’s watch our wedding video,” he practically snarled. Great. So he resented the tree now. And why shouldn’t he? It was feeding off his dead wife.
He pulled up the video on the TV. It had been their tradition to watch it on their anniversary. Three whole times. Thanks for killing her, God. If you exist, you’re an asshole. Go ahead, strike me down. I’m ready.
There was Darius, beaming like a proud papa as he walked Lauren down the aisle. Her mother sobbing, Jen beaming, his own mom teary eyed and smiling. Ben looking so dapper as best man.
And Lauren, so full of life and light that she truly did glow. No tears for her that day—she’d been all smiles. The most beautiful expression on her face, solemn yet joyful, as she looked in his eyes and said the words. “I, Lauren Rose Carlisle, take you, Joshua Stellan Park, to be my husband.”
His own voice had been steady and sure that day, and he remembered knowing with every molecule in his body that this was right. They belonged together.
Their first dance hadn’t been slow and romantic. It had been “For Once in My Life” by Stevie Wonder. Happy, bouncy, a song that brought a smile to everyone, and their guests had clapped along as Josh and Lauren spun and laughed and goofed around on the dance floor. No practiced routine for them, no sir. Just pure, unadulterated joy.
And now he was alone, day-drinking and crying. He pulled Pebbles onto his lap and let his tears seep into her soft fur while she licked his head. Just last year, Lauren had left a path of lit candles to their bedroom. It turned out to be the last time they’d made love.
A year. A fucking year without her. He wasn’t proud of himself for surviving it. He would’ve cheerfully died if it were up to him. He should’ve been hit by a bus, and the laughs they’d have in the Great Beyond if that happened . . .
He would never love anyone the way he’d loved her.
It took him some time to notice the red envelope that had been slipped under his door.
Lauren’s handwriting. Happy Anniversary.
A yellow sticky note was attached to the envelope, in different handwriting. There’s one more left after this one. Take care today. —Sarah
His hands shook as he opened it. It was one of those overly expensive cards made with tiny swirls of paper, practically a sculpture. Two hearts intertwined, all the colors of the rainbow where the hearts intersected.
Inside there was only one line, in her fat, pretty handwriting.
I will love you forever.
“I love you, too,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.
He was so, so grateful she’d thought ahead, thought of him without her.
But he missed her. He missed her so much that his knees gave out, and he slid to the floor and let his head fall back against the door.
Then Pebbles was there, wagging, licking him, whining, nudging him hard with her herder’s nose. “Okay, okay,” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “Message received.” He was treated to a full face-lick from the dog. “You’re a good girl,” he said, hugging her. “Such a good puppy.”
He went back to the couch, looked at his watch: 1:16 p.m. Just ten hours and forty-four minutes until this endless day was over.
* * *
ON FEBRUARY 22, Joshua held a jesa ceremony to honor his wife on the anniversary of her death.
He’d been talking more frequently to Ben since he’d met his biological father. This day needed to be marked, and Ben came through, as ever, with the idea for a jesa, a Korean tradition to honor the dead. It was usually reserved for ancestors, Ben had said, but who cared? He had described the ceremony in great detail, and to Josh, it sounded perfect.
He’d gone to the Kims’ the day before, and his mom took a rare day off to help cook. There were Korean foods and some of Lauren’s non-Korean favorites, all in some kind of order to pay homage to her life.
Now all that food sat in five rows on Josh’s coffee table—the dessert row, which contained chestnuts, pears, apples and persimmons, as well as clementines, which had been Lauren’s favorite fruit, and yakgwa, the honey cookies she had loved. Donna had brought chocolate chip cookies, Lauren’s childhood favorite, and Josh added them as well. The next row held pickled herring (another Lauren favorite), kimchi, shrimp and stuffed clams. Then came the soups—fish, vegetable, chicken noodle. The next row of food contained the sticky chicken she loved, and jeon, the vegetable-imbued pancakes. The final row, farthest from where Josh would sit, contained a bowl mounded with rice and another type of soup—beef turnip, Korea’s traditional soup for the dead, and a bowl of sand.
Ben had brought over a small rice-paper screen, which was set up at the other side of the coffee table, the idea being that Lauren’s spirit would come and sit on the other side of it. On the table was a picture of her taken on their wedding day, her eyes shining, her skin perfect, her lips curved in a smile full of love. Next to the table was the dogwood tree, a full foot taller than it had been last year.
Josh knew he would do this jesa only this once. That after today, the first year would be over, and all those firsts would be done. But he needed to mark this day somehow, and the whole year that had passed. He’d invited everyone close to her—Jen and her family, Donna and her boyfriend Bill, Sarah, Radley, Asmaa, and Lauren’s boss, Bruce. Sumi and his mom, and Ben, of course.
When everyone had arrived and stood in the living room, he opened the living room window to let in her spirit. A few seconds later, he closed it. Hope you made it inside, babe, he thought, swallowing the lump in his throat.
Jen’s face was already wet with tears, and Sebastian’s eyes were round and solemn. Octavia was asleep on Darius’s shoulder. Donna and Bill held hands, Donna’s eyes red-rimmed. Sarah and Radley stood together. Asmaa stood next to Bruce, her arm through his. Ben had his arm around
Sumi. Everyone watched in silence.
Josh knelt in front of the table and lit the incense—ironic, since Lauren hated incense. Don’t let that keep you away, he thought, almost smiling. Then Jen handed him a cup of rice wine, which he circled over the table. He’d spent all week studying the ceremony notes Ben gave him, but if he got some wrong, he was sure Lauren would forgive him. He poured a little wine into the sand three times, then laid a pair of chopsticks across the rice bowl.
He turned to Donna and bowed to her, the mother, and then repeated the gesture to Jen, honoring her family. Tears were on everyone’s cheeks now, and all was quiet except for the sound of sniffling.
Josh stood and faced the photo of his wife, his heart gripped in a vise. “Lauren Rose Carlisle Park,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady, “I call your name as the year changes, and the day on which you died has come. I will love you forever and will never forget your love, as big and wide as the heavens. In your honor, I humbly offer you this meal.” Then he knelt in front of the table, looking at her picture for a minute, then bowed so his forehead touched the cool floor.
He stayed there a minute, tears flooding his eyes. So much love, so much sorrow. I miss you, he thought. Please be safe. Please be happy.
When he rose, his mother handed him a tissue and gave him a nod of approval, squeezing his arm.
“Thank you all for coming,” he said, his voice breaking, and then Jen was hugging him, and his mother, and Donna and Sarah and Darius, Sebastian wrapping his little arms around Josh’s legs, everyone, everyone gathered around him and held him in their love . . . not just for Lauren, but love for him.
“We love you, Josh,” Jen said fiercely.
“We do, brother,” Darius said.
“I love you, Uncle Josh.”
“I love you, son.” I love you. We love you. We love you.
He started to cry then, and surrendered to it, sobbing in the embrace of their love. They weren’t just here for Lauren. They were here for him.
“We do get to eat,” he said finally, and everyone laughed.
“Good. I’m starving,” Jen said, squeezing him harder before releasing him.
He knew there was a proper way to serve the food and such, but he was done with the formality. This was enough. His guests helped themselves, his mother and Sumi handing out forks and plates and chopsticks. Donna poured wine and Darius opened beers. Josh went to the window and looked out, the cold air feeling good against his skin.
Sarah came and took his hand. “She would be so proud of you,” she whispered. “She always was. You did it, Josh. You made it through the first year.”
He nodded, and then he hugged her. “Thank you for sticking by me,” he said.
She nodded, took a shaky inhale, then let go.
“How was your date?” he asked.
“It was as bad as you guys predicted,” she said, wiping her eyes. “One of his icebreaker questions was ‘If you were going to kill me, how would you do it?’”
He laughed. “Wow.”
“Another one bites the dust,” she said. “Hey, would it be okay if I put on some music? Some of Lauren’s favorites?”
“That would be great,” he said. She went over to the iPad and started clicking away.
Ben appeared next to him. “You did great, son,” the older man said. “She was . . . she was a special girl.” There were tears in his eyes.
Josh hugged him. “Thank you, Ben. For being my father. For helping me.”
“It’s an honor.”
Josh patted Ben’s shoulder. “Go get some food.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
It was good to have a little distance from the throng, but he was so, so glad they were all here. A year ago, and for the two years previous, he had only thought of them as Lauren’s.
This past year, they had become his as well, some more than others, but all of them taking him into their hearts.
He was lucky. They had walked with him through this long, lonely year. He was damn lucky, not just to have been Lauren’s husband, but to have all of these people as well.
Then he saw a movement in the far corner of the living room, and his heart jolted. For just one second, he saw his wife, wearing the long pink dress she’d worn so often that Cape Cod summer. Her hair was loose, and she wasn’t wearing her cannula. She was watching Sebastian and Octavia, who were playing on the couch, a faint smile on her lips.
Then she turned to him and smiled in full, that smile that just staggered him. Her brown eyes sparkled with laughter, as they had so often. For that one second, he saw once again all the love she had for him, all the joy.
He didn’t look away. He didn’t even breathe, hoping the moment would last forever. Then his eyes swam with tears, and when he blinked, she was gone.
32
Joshua
Month thirteen
March
HE DID NOT read the letter Sarah left in March.
Instead, he emailed Alex at Chiron Medical Enterprises and asked when would be a good time to visit. Then he called Cookie, who booked him a flight, and he flew to Singapore a week later.
At the Chiron headquarters, he told Alex and Naomi his terms. He’d take the job but would need to be based in Rhode Island, though he’d spend two weeks out of six in Singapore. Way to rack up those frequent-flier miles. They said yes immediately.
He was introduced around, given a first-class tour of the beautiful city, taken out for dinner and to meet the woman who would be his Singapore-based assistant. Over dinner, he told Alex and Naomi he was a widower, and it had been just over a year. They expressed their condolences, and no one said anything more about it.
His salary was less than he’d made some years, but it was steady, had good healthcare benefits, six weeks a year of vacation (because everyone but Americans knew the value of significant time off). He’d also get bonuses based on patent and design implementation. Alex and Naomi suggested he hire two engineers and an assistant to work in Providence.
It was time for a change.
33
Lauren
Fifty-seven months left
TWO YEARS AND one month after her father died, and the day after she graduated from Rhode Island School of Design, Lauren Rose Carlisle had made a list.
A really important list.
The past twenty-five months had been tumultuous. When her father died the spring of her sophomore year, she was thrown into a tarry pit of chaos and grief. Dad had been the world’s best, and his death was so shocking it changed Lauren’s world. The rest of her college time was spent in the weird limbo of loss where she went through life, eating and showering, doing projects and papers and hanging with her friends and sister. Sometimes she found herself laughing, and it came almost as a surprise. Sometimes, she’d stop abruptly in the middle of a sidewalk, asking herself, “Am I awake right now? Is this really my life? Are you seriously saying I will never see my father again?”
The fabulous Dave Carlisle, beloved by all, hated by none, devoted husband, adoring father, excellent neighbor, dog lover—sweet Dave Carlisle who ran two miles a day and didn’t eat dessert, just slumped over at his desk one afternoon, a half-finished container of strawberry yogurt next to him. No profound last words. No family holding his hand, whispering how much they loved him.
Lauren had worshipped her dad. No man was perfect, of course . . . except her dad. He was funny, corny, indulgent enough, strict enough, and went through life happily stunned at his great luck in marrying Donna, the love of his life. Daughters? What could be better than two perfect girls? Nothing! Lauren knew it was a rare dad who could make both his girls feel like they were his favorite. When Jen had sweet little Sebastian, just five months before her dad’s untimely death, he had cried at the sight of his grandson, and later sent flowers to his wife and both
his girls, congratulating them on their new status in life—grandmother, mother, aunt.
At the age of twenty, Lauren would’ve been hard-pressed to find a single time her father had let her down, been irritable with her or shown her anything but love and wonder. Darius, Jen’s husband, had been pronounced “almost as wonderful as Daddy” by Jen herself, to which Darius said he’d have to up his game.
“Are you kidding, son? You’re fantastic,” her dad had said. “You just take care of my little girl.”
Lauren herself had ridiculous standards when it came to dating. She and Sarah would argue cheerfully over this; Sarah thought everyone deserved a chance, and Lauren . . . Lauren didn’t want to waste time on anyone who showed the slightest red flag. She had seen how a real man should treat a woman. She didn’t want anything less.
Her dad’s autopsy showed a massive aneurysm. It wasn’t fair. He had deserved better, the kind of guy who’d pull over to change a flat for anyone, who paid off the balance of a family’s layaway at Christmas. Dave Carlisle should’ve died heroically, running into a burning building to save babies and puppies (and he would have run in, and Lauren had no doubt he would’ve saved everyone). He should’ve died with a smile on his face, surrounded by the three women who loved him, his baby grandson on his chest, full of gratitude for the love he had earned in his life.
But . . . “life sucks and shit happens” and all the other bumper stickers told Lauren that she had to swallow this bitter pill—a baseball-sized pill—and keep living.
Sometimes grief brings a family together; sometimes it pushes each person into a corner. Sometimes it does both. She and Jen had always been good to each other; Jen was five years older, and Lauren adored her appropriately. Jen had set the bar unfairly high with her grades and career in environmental law, her beautiful, kind husband, her perfect baby, and Lauren cheerfully acknowledged this.
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