Pack Up the Moon

by Kristan Higgins

  “Also, I insulted you at a party your freshman year.”

  Then he smiled, and so did I. “This doesn’t look like apparel design to me,” he said, looking around. (He did remember me!)

  “I changed majors my sophomore year.”

  “And look at you now.”

  My heart felt suddenly too big and hot for my chest. It wasn’t that he was (extremely) handsome . . . it was the . . . the recognition. The way those five words . . . honored me. Almost like he was impressed.

  “I like your shirt,” I whispered, then cleared my throat.

  He looked down at it. “Yeah . . . I . . . I don’t remember where I got it. My mom, maybe. I didn’t know there was a dress code.” He blushed a little. Gah! He was adorable.

  “There’s not. You look fine.”

  Then he looked back at me. His eyes were dark and serious, but there was a little light in there, too, a candle on the darkest night. Suddenly, it felt like there was a bridge between us, linking us, and, Dad, I had the semi-coherent thought that if I could walk across that bridge, I’d be in the most beautiful, happiest, safest place in the world.

  Then, alas, moment interruptus, courtesy of Elisabetta, one of the little cuties who is a regular here, tugging my hand. “Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, come see what I just made! I worked the computer by myself, Lauren, and I made you a picture!”

  “It’s all right if you go,” Josh said, and those words hit me in the chest like a sledgehammer, because he sounded . . . he sounded so sad. So lonely. It wasn’t all right.

  “Do you want to have a glass of wine sometime?” I asked, ignoring Elisabetta, who was jumping up and down, practically tearing off my arm.

  “I don’t drink alcohol.”

  “Coffee milk, then? Dunkin’? Water? Tea? Del’s lemonade?”

  “Um . . . okay. Yes. I would like that.” He blushed again but didn’t look away.

  “I’m asking you on a date. Just to be clear.” Because this moment was infused with importance, with promise, I couldn’t just drift off like a feather on the breeze hoping he got that.

  Josh’s face didn’t change. “In that case, definitely yes.”

  Thank God. Fortune favors the bold and all that. “Okay. Um . . . Elisabetta, honey, one second.” I pulled her hand free and took out my phone.

  “She likes you,” Elisabetta told him. (Awesome wingman, my Elisabetta.)

  “I . . . I hope you’re right,” he said to the girl, and my heart, Dad! My heart!

  Guess I wasn’t just pretty and shallow anymore.

  He was looking at me so . . . so thoroughly, like he could see that bridge, too, and he wanted to cross it, too.

  “Your number, sir?” I asked, dousing any cool-girl vibe I might’ve had going.

  He gave it, and my fingers shook as I typed it in. Then I held up the phone and took his picture. “So I can remember that shirt,” I said.

  He smiled, and a bolt of pure golden light flew across that bridge straight into my soul, and listen to me, Dad, I have never, ever, not even once, had thoughts like this. “Thank you for coming tonight,” I said.

  “I was just walking past.”

  “Don’t ruin it. Let me think you were stalking me in a not-creepy way for the past few years.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Hush. A girl can dream.” And then . . . back to awkward. “I mean, not that I was dreaming you were . . . and also, obviously, I’m not a girl, I’m a woman. Never mind! Bye.” Then I let Elisabetta pull me away, and I looked over my shoulder.

  He was still looking. A very positive sign.

  So, Dad, that brings me to the last thing on my list.

  Meet the man you’ll marry.

  Consider it done, Daddy. Consider it done.

  34

  Joshua

  Month fourteen

  April

  THE LETTER SAT on his bureau, where he’d put it since Sarah had dropped it off.

  Josh, #12.

  He still hadn’t read it. Why would he? He could keep this thing going forever if he didn’t open that envelope.

  A month ago, Radley had moved into the house in Cranston and was stripping the wallpaper. He sent daily updates and photos, commenting on how the snowdrops had popped up on the lawn, how the daffodils would burst soon. It would be lovely. It already was.

  But Josh didn’t have plans to move just yet, because moving . . . that would be the end of the time he’d lived in this apartment with his wife. He suddenly understood why so many folks on the forum had left their houses shrines to their lost spouses. Because it was comforting. Because once he sold this place, he would never be able to come back.

  But things were changing whether he wanted them to or not.

  The apartment didn’t smell the way it used to. Lauren’s shower gel had turned rancid (damn that organic stuff), and he’d had to throw it away. Her pillow had lost its Lauren smell, no matter how deeply he inhaled. He’d started sleeping in the middle of the bed.

  And he had the new job. He was getting acclimated to working with other people, daily updates, action points, Zoom meetings (God bless the mute and video cut buttons). Frank the Realtor had rented out a floor of office space for Josh’s new team in the Hanley Building. He took his new engineer out for dinner; Erika had worked in Singapore but grew up on the East Coast, and she was thrilled to be back near her family. He hired a whiz kid—Mateo Cano—out of the same MIT program he’d been in, and he’d start in June. As for his administrative assistant, he offered the job to Cookie Goldberg.

  “I live on Long Island,” she said in her gravelly voice. “What do you think, I’m gonna move for you?”

  “I was hoping,” he said.

  “I have nine grandchildren within two blocks.”

  “So you tell me.”

  “I guess this is the end of the road, then,” she said, and for some reason, though he had only met her in person at Lauren’s funeral, his throat tightened.

  “Thank you for everything,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “You bet.” And then she hung up, as unsentimental as ever. He sent her a severance check of $25,000 and the note Take the grandkids to a national park on me.

  Cammie, his favorite working girl, recommended someone for the job, and so Josh was now in charge of three people—Erika, Mateo and Andrea, who was in her fifties and immediately became the mother of the group, reminding people to drink water and go home on time. She went on coffee runs and bought art and plants and miscellaneous stuff for the offices to “sex it up in here.” Within weeks, Josh couldn’t remember how he’d lived without her.

  When their business cards came, he looked at his for a long while.

  Lauren would’ve been so proud.

  Joshua Park, BFA, ScM, PhD

  Vice President and Lead Designer, Biomedical Engineering

  Chiron Medical Enterprises

  He gave one to his mom, and she put it on the fridge, like it was a drawing he’d made in kindergarten. He also sent one to Christopher M. Zane with a note—Hope you’re doing well. Best, Joshua. Maybe, someday, he’d go to Chicago and meet his half siblings. Maybe.

  Being on his own wasn’t what he wanted anymore. It was too lonely. He didn’t want to revert to that dorky, solitary workaholic Lauren had dated. He wanted to be more. Loving her, and losing her, had changed him, and he didn’t want to go backward.

  But still, the letter waited. He found ways to pretend it wasn’t there.

  He had a life these days, sort of, even if it had started as a substitute for Lauren. He was a regular at the Eddy, though their ever-changing staff never could remember his name. He and Jen met there every other Wednesday for lunch, and sometimes Darius would join them. Radley and he still went there often, and since it was close to the office, he started t
aking his staff there, too.

  He was heading up the robotics team at the Hope Center, which meant they would crush all other teams. He got his purple belt and graduated to be with the nine-year-olds. He visited the house in Cranston, which Radley was itching to name, and ripped out the kitchen countertops and took a sledgehammer to the hideous lime-green master bathroom. Radley had already furnished the office above the garage in anticipation of having his practice there.

  The cherry blossoms burst forth, thrilling old gray Providence with color and beauty. Sarah went on a dating hiatus per Radley’s suggestion.

  The letter waited.

  And then, on a night in mid-April, two months after he was supposed to open it, Josh poured himself a glass of wine, called Pebbles up next to him, and held the letter in his hands.

  Josh, #12

  The last one.

  For a year, she had walked him through his grief. For a year, she’d loved him from the Great Beyond, guiding him, getting him out of his own way, making him feel her love, hear her voice. For a year, he had had her even after he’d lost her.

  It was time to read the last thing she had to say to him.

  “Do you agree?” he asked Pebbles. She wagged her tail. “Okay. So be it.”

  He opened the letter. It was longer than the others.

  My darling, wonderful, kindhearted Joshua,

  I love you.

  Picturing this year for you has been heartbreaking. In so many ways, I think I had the easier end of this stick. I got to die, and I had to leave you behind to do the work of living. I know it’s been hard and lonely and horrible. I’m so, so sorry, honey. The absolute worst thing about this disease was not that I was going to die from it. It was that I broke your heart, the one thing I swore I’d never do.

  I am so sorry I left you, honey. I’m so sorry I hurt you and caused you to be sad and angry and isolated. If I have any say about it, I’ll always watch over you and love you and smile down at you. I believe in your goodness more than anything else in my entire life.

  So this is the last thing on my list . . . and it’s the hardest one.

  Find someone to love.

  Oh, Josh. You’re alive and wonderful. Let someone love you. Someone great. I want you to open that amazing heart of yours again. I want you to be loved. I want you to have a fight with someone and have hot makeup sex. I want you to be a father. I want you to love your second wife just as much as you loved me.

  Don’t let me be your life’s tragedy. Let me be one of the best things that ever happened. One of the many best things that ever happened to you. Let our time together be a beautiful, happy time in your life that came to an end, but led to more happiness, more love.

  You’ve mourned me enough, and I’m sure part of you always will. But the facts won’t change. My life ended. Yours has not. You deserve everything, especially love, Joshua Park. You are single-handedly the best person I’ve ever met.

  It’s time to put me aside and move on without me. You can do it, honey. You’ve been doing it, even if you think you haven’t. Time keeps spooling out the days and weeks. You’re better now. You’ve healed. I know it. It doesn’t mean you’ll forget me. It just means it’s time to find someone else.

  On that note . . . I would like to present Sarah as a candidate.

  My guess is that you’ve become friends, and you’ve seen her the way she really is—so devoted and hardworking, funny and smart and kind. I bet she’s been there for you. I bet she loves you already. And I know she has wretched judgment when it comes to guys. You already know her, so you can skip over that awkward “where did you go to school” crap.

  Also, she thinks you’re hot. Which you totally are.

  Think of me as your matchmaker from the GB. If it doesn’t work, well, you gotta start somewhere, right? (Unless you married that woman you kissed a few letters ago, which makes this letter irrelevant.)

  I think I’m stalling, knowing this is the last time you’ll ever hear from me this way. I’m crying a little, Josh. Actually, I’m sobbing. I don’t know how to end this, but I know I have to.

  Take good care of yourself, honey. Be happy. Be full of joy. That’s all I ever wanted.

  Thank you for our life together. I was so happy. I loved you with all my heart, Joshua Park.

  I’ll see you again someday, my darling, wonderful husband.

  Lauren

  He put the letter down, tears blurring his vision. This was it. She was gone. Again.

  And suddenly it was there, right in front of him, the one memory of Lauren he’d been trying to bury. He couldn’t turn away from it anymore, couldn’t shove it down, couldn’t avoid it.

  Suddenly, he was right back there again.

  The last day of Lauren’s life . . .

  The last hour . . .

  It was time to remember that day. Then, maybe, he could let her go.

  35

  Lauren

  No time left

  February 16

  THE PNEUMONIA CAME fast and furious, a thief in the night, robbing her of air. She was dimly aware of feeling awful, her chest heavy. Two days ago, on their third anniversary, she’d been fine.

  In a matter of hours, that changed. She’d been tired when she went to bed, sure, but somewhere in the night, true exhaustion set in. She pushed the covers back, too hot, then fell back asleep, the fatigue heavy and black. She coughed, her back spasming, but even that sharp, twisting pain wasn’t enough to keep her awake. Her chest was working, trying to get enough air. She could hear the noise of her own breathing—gasping—but she was so, so tired.

  “Honey? Lauren?”

  With an effort, she opened her heavy eyes.

  “I think you’re sick,” he said, and she nodded, her head like an anvil. A sharp pain stabbed her on each inhale. He clipped the O2 monitor to her forefinger and stared at it, then put on the stethoscope and listened to her lungs. “Shit,” he said. “Can you cough, honey? Get some gunk up?”

  This was not their first go-round with pneumonia, after all. He pulled her upright and she tried, coughing into a tissue. Gross. Nasty, thick mucus the color of moss. Not a great sign. More coughing, accompanied by a wrenching back spasm. Josh massaged the muscle and increased her oxygen flow.

  After her first round of pneumonia, they’d bought a percussion vest, a heavy, battery-operated thing that looked like a life jacket. Josh clipped it onto her now, and the thudding began; it was designed to loosen phlegm and help her clear her lungs. It felt like she was being punched, and she nearly tipped over with exhaustion. She tried to breathe deeply but the stabbing pain cut her off.

  “Try huffing, sweetheart,” he said, phone to his ear. “Hey, Dr. Bennett, it’s Joshua Park. Lauren’s got pneumonia again, I think. O2 sat is seventy-nine, lungs have crackles and she’s sweaty and feverish.”

  Lauren got some more crap out of her lungs, but it was scary, how much shit was in there.

  Then she was asleep again, even with the vest pounding away. She was aware that Josh was carrying her, putting her in the car, since it would be faster than the ambulance. He held her hand as he drove; it was only a few minutes.

  He pulled up in front of the ER doors, got out and carried her inside. “My wife has pulmonary fibrosis, and it looks like she has pneumonia. She’s a patient of Dr. Bennett’s, and she needs a bed. Now.”

  They listened to him. She was a frequent flier here, after all.

  Then she was in a bed, and there were a lot of people around her, and they were saying the too-familiar words—sats down, temperature up, heart rate too fast.

  “Lauren? We’re going to intubate you, hon,” said Carol, one of her favorite nurses.

  Lauren looked at Josh, his face tight with fear, held up her hand with the thumb, forefinger and pinkie sticking up. I love you in sign language. Then she made the L sign and put it
against her forehead. Loser. Their little joke. Her arm flopped back on the bed.

  He managed a smile. “I love you, too, loser.” One of the nurses gave him a sharp look, and Lauren smiled. There was the pinch of a needle, and then she was floating on the darkness.

  Later, Jen was also there.

  “Fight it, sis,” she whispered, her eyes wet.

  Lauren nodded, squeezed Jen’s hand, fell back into the nothingness of sedation. Was she dying? The pneumonia was different this time, heavier, bigger.

  The next time she woke up, there was her mom, white-faced, hair messy. Sarah, murmuring something, smelling nice. More sleeping. Stephanie, smiling encouragingly. “You’re doing fine, sweetheart,” she said. “Rest.”

  And always, Josh, calm, steady, there every time she opened her eyes. She knew time was passing because of the stubble on his face. Oh, Josh. She loved him so much. She wanted to know how sick she was, but she couldn’t talk, so she just raised her eyebrows and looked at him.

  He didn’t move for a minute, then gave a small nod. “It’s pretty bad, honey.”

  She pressed her hands together to make a heart, and he smiled, but tears were in his eyes. Then sleep pulled her again, down, down, into the soft, comforting blackness.

  Later, she was asleep but not as much. Floating. Something large and heavy was on her chest, and even with the ventilator pushing air into her, she could tell it wasn’t enough. She was so tired. Even though she’d been asleep, she was exhausted.

  Was this it? Was she really dying this time? She wanted Pebbles, her sweet little companion through all this. She wanted to see the kids, but she didn’t want them to be scared or . . . and then she was back in the nothingness.

  Awake again. Josh in a different shirt. Time had passed, then. She just wanted to look at him, drink him in. Jen was crying, so unlike her. Lauren raised her middle finger, and smiled around the tube, and everyone laughed. Josh kissed her hand, and oh, that smile, those eyes, his beautiful face.