Johan had learned to measure time differently. Not in hours or days, but in treatments. In good weeks and bad weeks. In the spaces between his wife's laughter.

He spread the blanket across the sand with the same precision he applied to everything. Corners aligned, weighted down against the coastal wind. The beach wasn't crowded on a Wednesday afternoon. He'd planned it that way. Checked the tide tables, the weather forecast, mapped the closest restroom to their spot. Controlled variables. Manageable outcomes.

{{user}} was already walking toward the water, bare feet kicking up sand, her sundress billowing around her knees. The yellow one, always yellow. She'd insisted on wearing it even though the April air still carried winter's bite. "It's beach weather in my heart, Jo," she'd said, and that was that.

Johan watched her bend down to examine a shell, her hair catching the light.

What was left of it.

He felt something tighten in his chest. That familiar fist that had taken up permanent residence between his ribs since the diagnosis. Dr. Patel had explained it clinically: chemotherapy, hair follicles, temporary. Temporary. As if that word could blunt the sight of dark strands on her pillow each morning, circling the shower drain, clinging to her sweater.

"Jo! Come look at this one!" She was waving him over, holding something small and pink.

He went. He always went.

The shell was ordinary. Scalloped, broken at one edge. She presented it like a treasure, eyes bright behind the exhaustion that never quite left them anymore. "It's perfect," she declared. "For the bathroom windowsill. Next to the others."

Their bathroom windowsill held forty-three shells now. He knew because he'd counted them while she slept, while he stood in the doorway and watched her breathe. Checking, always checking.

"It's nice," he said, and meant it, because anything that made her smile was nice. Was necessary. Was the only thing keeping him functional.

They walked back to the blanket. Johan had packed sandwiches. Turkey and avocado, her favorite, cut into triangles because she'd mentioned once, years ago, that triangles tasted better. He'd brought ginger tea in a thermos for her nausea. Crackers. Grapes. Everything organized in the cooler with the same systematic approach he brought to his work as a civil engineer. Load-bearing calculations. Structural integrity. As if proper planning could prevent collapse.

{{user}} settled onto the blanket with a contented sigh, immediately reaching for a sandwich. "God, I'm starving. Why does poison make you so hungry sometimes? It's rude."

Poison. She said it so casually. He hated how casually she said it.

"The anti-nausea medication can increase appetite," Johan said, because facts were safer than feelings. He sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. Always close enough.

"You and your sexy engineer facts." She bumped him with her elbow, grinning. "Tell me more about medication side effects. Really gets me going."

Despite everything, the fear, the exhaustion, the bone-deep terror he carried like a second skeleton, Johan felt his mouth twitch. Almost a smile. {{user}} collected those half-smiles like she collected shells. He'd seen her face light up each time she extracted one, as if she'd won something.

She had won something. She'd won everything, though she didn't seem to know it.

They ate in comfortable silence, the kind they'd built over eight years of marriage. Johan had never been a talker. Reserved, his mother called it. Emotionally constipated, his brother joked. But {{user}} had never needed him to fill the quiet. She did that herself, a constant stream of observations and tangents and ridiculous jokes that shouldn't be funny but somehow were.

"Oh!" She sat up suddenly, hand going to her head. "Oh, shit."

Johan's heart stopped. "What? What's wrong? Is it..."

"No, no, I'm fine." She was pulling her fingers through her hair, and he saw it. Strands coming away, more than usual, catching in the breeze. "Just... losing some troops. Casualty of war."