Love wasn’t hard. It wasn’t complicated. They didn’t have to talk about monogamy or commitment. “I want to see you again as soon as possible,” he said on their first date, so forthright and unguarded that she felt a rush of protectiveness.
She would take such good care of him. He was so pure, and she would make a beautiful life with him. For him. Because of him.
And he took care of her, too. He admired her work and understood its complexity, unlike most people, who thought she was an interior decorator or landscaper, rather than the designer of how space would be used. He was so focused on her as she talked about it that, at first, she felt shy. This guy saved lives with his brain, and it was kinda sorta hard to compete with that. But he asked for her perspective on things, readily admitting he didn’t know anything about what made a park pretty or what purpose a public square had or what pedestrian flow meant. And he listened to her answers about how public spaces could be the soul of a city or college, how they could transform the bleakest industrial park or poorest neighborhood.
His attention, so focused and singular, made her feel bathed in warm, golden sun. No guy she’d dated had ever been so interested in her. Most had just waited for their turn to talk, or interrupted her or mansplained till she cut them off. Other guys bided their time (generally fifteen minutes) until they could see if she’d put out that night.
Josh saw her, heard every word, and made her feel . . . important. The most important person in the world.
Which, to be fair, was not the most common experience for Lauren. Jen was the superior sister, a fact Lauren would not dispute. Growing up, her mom always assumed her second daughter was fine, which Lauren was. Her mom had been a teacher, and her patience for kids dried up before she came home. Jen was fabulous, and Lauren was her biggest fan. Her dad had thought both his girls had hung the moon.
Men Lauren’s age . . . most of them were still teenagers, no matter what age their driver’s licenses showed.
So to have this beautiful, brilliant man tilting his head when she talked, his brows drawn together, not missing a single word she said . . .
To have this kind, gentle man asking her if he could hold her hand and later, kiss her, and later after that, unbutton her blouse . . .
To have him ask if she’d like to have dinner with his mother, because “she’s dying to meet you” . . . it was like the best dream she’d ever had. No hipster pretentiousness, no millennial cynicism, no mansplaining superiority even though he was a bona fide genius who was making the world a better place.
He told her on their fifth date that he had wondered if he’d ever meet someone. That he’d never expected to get married, because his place on the spectrum put a lot of people off. That women didn’t have patience for him. That he wasn’t tall enough. That he didn’t know how to flirt.
Lauren thought he was utterly delightful because of those things, not despite them.
Also, had he just actually said the word married? She didn’t ask him for further explanation, but she sure as hell replayed that sentence ten thousand times.
She didn’t wonder if they should take things more slowly. Didn’t wonder if anyone else was out there. She deleted her dating apps the night of the Hope Center opening.
He was the one. And so was she.
He was equal parts smooth and dorktastic. He unabashedly loved his mom, who raised him single-handedly after her boyfriend had abandoned her. Josh saw her and the Kims every Wednesday night for dinner. If his mom texted him a cat video, he’d watch it, and love it. Yes, he lost track of time and was often late and didn’t have a Pavlovian response to texts and needed her to explain things like body language, only watched the same two TV shows (The Great British Bake Off and Star Trek). Yes, he desperately needed a decent barber. It didn’t matter. He videoconferenced with the likes of Bill Gates and Bono—Bono!—and presented workshops on up-and-coming fields of biotech. Several times when they were out walking, deans from RISD and Brown had literally run to catch up to them to say hello to their prodigy.
Joshua also held the door for her and took her to the nicest restaurants as ranked by Providence.com (he was big on research). He was unabashed in telling her she was beautiful, smelled good, had smooth skin. He sent flowers to her home and office, sometimes twice in one day, forgetting that he’d already done it.
His work was so important, and he was so wonderful, but left on his own, he might stay in his apartment for the rest of his life, lost in his mind palace. So she scheduled time off for him, putting it into his phone so he’d get a reminder an hour before that he was due to shower and answer the door when she buzzed. She would text him and tell him to stretch and drink a glass of water and eat a vegetable, and he’d answer with a picture of a carrot and the words thank you.
They took walks in the cold winter air, went to student shows at the Providence Art Club and RISD, where Josh was always fawned over (justifiably) and Lauren was not (irritatingly). She cooked for him and introduced him to the wonder of roasted broccoli, which he had never tried before.
There was a lot of soulful gazing. It sounded cheesy, but it was . . . it was like coming home. Kissing was the best. Long, hot makeout sessions on various pieces of furniture or on a bench at the Roger Williams botanical gardens.
And sex . . . oh, God, sex was . . . it was fun and amazing and it had moments of utter . . . reverence. Because this was the last man she was ever going to have sex with. This was sex with the man she’d marry. This was the father of her future children, children she loved already.
When he asked her to meet his mother and the Kims, she was as nervous as she’d ever been. After all, Josh only loved a handful of people, and at least half of them would be at this dinner. She wore a modest dress, tried to look effortlessly perfect and natural in the hair and makeup area (which took hours) and called her sister eight times to get pointers on how to impress potential in-laws.
She didn’t have to worry. Stephanie, a tall, striking blond woman who looked nothing like Josh, opened the door, took a critical look at Lauren, and then said, “I approve. Come on in.”
She did, glancing at Josh with wide eyes. He shrugged.
The Kims, by contrast, fell on her. “At last!” Sumi cried. “Joshie has been telling us great things! Oh, sweetheart, you’re lovely! Stephanie, the babies they’ll make!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Ben with a wink.
“That took . . .” Josh looked at his watch. “Sixteen seconds. Lauren, this is my mom, Stephanie Park, and our best friends, Sumi and Ben.”
The photo albums were next. Stephanie, who seemed warmly amused by this whole “meeting my son’s girlfriend” experience, brought out the photo albums of baby Josh and told the story of moving into this very house, eight months pregnant, having just transferred from Harvard to Brown. The Kims practically adopted her; Sumi had been Steph’s birth coach.
“The cutest baby ever!” she said, clapping her hands. “No offense to our own four.”
“They were funny-looking, it’s true,” said Ben.
Lauren drank in the pictures—the Kims throwing baby Josh a Baek-il, his one-hundred-day birthday. Steph laughing as Josh chewed wrapping paper on Christmas morning. Josh dressed in a little suit for Easter. Josh riding a bike, his face fiercely focused as Ben ran alongside him. At one of the Kim daughters’ weddings. His high school graduation. Pictures of him in front of the first-year quad at RISD.
It looked very much like a happy, full life.
Stephanie was the director of the Rhode Island Hospital lab, overseeing a staff of about twenty. Once Josh turned eight, he’d gone to the Kims’ house after school, which explained why he spoke Korean. The Parks were always included in holidays.
A small family circle—no mention of the deadbeat dad—but a loving, happy circle just the same.
“Tell us about yourself, Lauren,” Stephanie asked
at dinner.
“I work as a public space designer, which means I design everything from a bus stop to a park to a doctor’s office. I have an older sister, Jen, and she and her husband have a little boy. My mom still works as a reading consultant for the public schools, and my dad . . .” Her voice choked off unexpectedly. “My dad died when I was twenty.”
“So sad,” said Sumi, patting her hand. “Do you like Korean food?”
Lauren smiled. “I love it.”
“I can teach you to cook, just like I taught Joshua!”
“I will not teach you to cook,” said Stephanie, smiling. “I’m a fair gardener, though. And a great baker.”
“Wait till you see Mom’s peonies this spring,” Josh said, and it warmed her through and through. Spring was months away, but he was planning on her being there.
Le sigh.
“Josh has never brought a girl home before,” Ben murmured, leaning in. “We were a little surprised, to be honest. In the best way, of course.” He smiled, and Lauren’s toes curled in her shoes. They liked her. Thank God.
After they all cleaned their plates, Lauren practically wrestled Sumi for the honor of clearing the table. She and Josh loaded the dishes and washed the pots and pans together.
“You’re doing great,” he whispered in a rare moment of picking up on the unspoken.
She let out a breath. “I’m so nervous.”
“Mom likes you. And the Kims love you.”
After tea and coffee, Josh announced it was time to go, his “time spent with loved ones” meter expired. A bit to Lauren’s surprise, Stephanie pulled her into a hug.
“We should have lunch,” she said. “So we can really get to know each other.”
“I would love that,” Lauren said.
When they got into her car, Josh turned to her. “You okay?” he asked.
“I’m wonderful. I love them. They’re so nice, Josh.”
“Yes.” He smiled.
“I hear you’ve never brought a girl home.”
“No. Definitely not one I wanted to marry,” he said.
There it was. That certainty. He looked at her a long minute, then kissed her on the lips, so gently. Joy filled her with a warm, buoyant, golden light.
“I love you,” she said, and they both laughed, then kissed, and kissed some more, and Lauren’s eyes were wet with tears of happiness.
He proposed on the first of May, a day when the blossoms on the crab apple trees were so thick they looked like pink whipped cream. He’d picked her up from work, and they walked hand in hand along the Providence River, just past RISD. Josh said he’d had a meeting with a company that day, explaining why he wore a suit she had never seen. The light was soft and golden, the breeze causing pink petals to drift and float, and then he was down on one knee, holding up a small velvet box.
The ring was an emerald-cut diamond set on either side with smaller diamonds, stunning in its simple beauty.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, and she just looked at him, smiling with more love in her heart than she knew it could hold.
“Damn right I will,” she said. Of course she would. It was just a formality. She was meant to be his wife, and he was destined to be her husband.
As they kissed, she made a vow. She would do everything in her power to make a beautiful, happy, meaningful life. The last thing she would ever do was break this man’s heart.
30
Joshua
Month eleven
January
THE LETTER HAD sat there for a few days now, throbbing like a wound in his mind. He dreaded reading it. He was dying to read it. But after this, there would only be one more, and once these stopped, he didn’t know how he would face the future. Couldn’t she have done this for two years? Five? Ten?
Finally, with a sigh, he sat down, patted the couch so Pebbles would leap up next to him, then opened the letter.
Hello, honey.
If you’re still reading these, I guess you still want to hear from me. I’m glad, Josh. I know one thing. Even if I’m dead, I would never really leave you. I don’t know what or how that looks right now, but I remember feeling my dad around me. I hope you can feel me there with you sometimes, just enough to reassure you.
So it’s been a good long while since I died. I hope your new normal isn’t too isolated or sad. I hate the idea that I’ve made your life sad. We had shitty luck with the IPF, but God, we had the best luck with each other.
I’ve been thinking a lot here on Cape Cod, listening to the ocean, trying to imagine what your life will be like eleven months after I die. I hope you at least gave some thought to meeting your biological father. If you do decide to meet him, I hope and pray it goes well. I hope whatever you decided, you know that the last thing you could ever be is disposable.
He had to stop for a minute and take a few breaths. She’d been right about that meeting. It had given him something. A face. A story to fill the void. A sense of peace. And it reinforced the knowledge that Ben Kim was the greatest man Josh had ever known. He felt even closer to him after meeting his biological father.
I think about when I first came to your apartment, and it was such a mess. Hopefully, I broke you of that habit and our place is neat and clean.
“It is, honey,” he said.
I remember how you went for days without going outside, how you never went to the rooftop unless I ordered you to. I remember how when we were dating, I’d be the only person you saw sometimes for days at a time.
I don’t want that to be your life now, Josh. And so . . .
I think you should buy a house. That’s my job for you this month, honey. Start looking for houses. One with a yard for Pebbles, grass for you to cut, a garden where you can grow tomatoes, because you love tomatoes fresh from the vine, warm from the sun. I want you to have neighbors to wave to, and I want you to shovel some old lady’s walk when it snows. I want little kids to ring your doorbell on Halloween. I want you to walk out to the mailbox and chat with the nice folks across the street. Our apartment was great, but it’s pretty isolated, and even I couldn’t win over that couple from the second floor. Plus, Creepy Charlotte scares me (if she’s your second wife, I’m going to kill you, FYI).
He laughed out loud. Creepy Charlotte had opened her door the other night the second Josh had come home from a run. She was wearing a towel only. “Did you knock?” she’d asked.
“Absolutely not,” he said, running up the stairs before the towel could “slip.” He’d definitely gotten better at reading people this past year.
What do you think, babe? You don’t need to buy a house right now (but you can afford it, don’t forget). Maybe just start looking. Take Sarah. She loves open houses.
It’s a way to start thinking about a life separate from where we lived so happily together. Because that life is in the past now. It’s time to start making something new.
I love you so, so much, Joshua Park.
Lauren
He thought a minute.
Shopping for houses . . . sure. It was fun. He liked seeing open houses, just like anyone.
But leaving this place? That life wasn’t past! She was wrong. His life was right here, in the place where they’d lived. He’d bought the new couch, the new bed, as she’d asked.
But it was not time to leave.
He wadded up the letter and threw it across the room, whereupon Pebbles leaped on it. Josh cursed, got up and took it out of her drooly mouth, smoothed it out and looked at it. Some of Lauren’s handwriting smeared, which made him feel like utter shit.
He pulled out the ironing board and iron and smoothed the letter out. “I’m sorry,” he said. Pebbles wagged her tail and barked.
He knew Lauren wanted the best for him. He also knew that a lot of her suggestions had done some good. Seeing his father had put to rest some of his feelings. Kissing Cam
mie had been pleasant enough. Buying new clothes had brought Radley into his life.
But leave the apartment where they lived together? Where they’d made love and cooked and watched movies and figured out her care? He couldn’t imagine it. He didn’t want to feel more distant from her.
A new couch and bed was one thing. A new place? Every corner of the apartment was infused with her. It was a shrine in some ways—the photos of her, the paintings she’d chosen, the towels, the napkins. Everything was a reminder of loss as well as of Lauren. Anything new was similarly in her memory—I bought this when my wife had been dead for six months and four days. I bought this to hang where our wedding photo was. It hadn’t erased her in any way; it had made her absence all the more noticeable.
Time for the punching bag now.
* * *
“I DON’T WANT to live somewhere else,” he said to Ben a few hours later.
“Yeah, those fists are telling a story,” said Ben, smiling kindly. “Try to wrap up next time.”
They were sitting in the basement of the Kims’ house, Ben’s man cave all these years, a place where Josh had spent many hours building things from the bits of metal and wood Ben offered him. The room smelled faintly of spices with a hint of smoke from their fireplace upstairs. It was one of the places Josh felt safest in the world.
But not tonight.
Ben handed him a length of wire, thin enough that Josh could twist it. Yes. It was good to have something to do with his hands. Better than a fidget spinner, anyway. Ben knew him well.
“You’ll never be ready, son. But you’ll do it anyway. And after some time passes, it won’t feel so wrong.”
“I don’t want time to pass,” Josh admitted in a low voice, not looking up. “Every day is a step away from her.” His voice broke, just a little. The image of her last day flickered at the edges of his brain, and he shoved it away. Twisted the wire. Bent it. Threaded it through a loop. Lauren on the beach, on the bed, on their wedding day. Anything but that last day.
Pack Up the Moon Page 33
