The Memory Between Us

The goldfish circled its bowl in the corner of Elena's hospital room, its orange scales catching the afternoon light. Three seconds of memory, she'd told him once. That was all they got. Marcus watched the fish complete another lap and wondered if his own memory had become as fluid, as unreliable as hers.

"You're staring again," Elena said, her voice raspy from the radiation treatments. She ran a hand through her hair—what was left of it, thin and brittle as autumn grass. Before the tumor, before the surgeries, her hair had been a dark curtain she'd hide behind when she didn't want to be seen. Now she didn't hide. She couldn't.

Marcus sat on the edge of her bed. "I'm not staring."

"You are. Like I'm a riddle you're trying to solve."

"A sphinx," he said. "You're my sphinx."

She laughed, a dry sound that made her cough. "And what's my riddle, Marcus? What happens to a woman who forgets everything she was?"

He smoothed the blanket over her legs. "She becomes something new. Every day."

"Is that supposed to comfort me? That I'm reinventing myself because the old version's been deleted?"

The goldfish bumped against the glass, startling them both.

"I bought you something," Marcus said, reaching into his bag. He pulled out a wig—a cascade of auburn curls, nothing like her natural hair, everything she'd secretly wanted when they'd met at that twenty-something office party fifteen years ago. She'd been the girl with the sensible bob, the sensible job, the sensible boyfriend she'd eventually leave for him.

Elena's eyes widened. "It's ridiculous."

"It's you. The you you wanted to be."

"I don't even remember wanting that."

"I remember," he said. "I remember everything."

She reached for the wig, then pulled back. "What if it doesn't fit anymore? What if I've changed too much?"

"The sphinx doesn't ask if it's still a sphinx," he said, placing the wig on her head. "It just keeps its secrets."

She turned to the mirror, and for the first time in months, Marcus saw the woman he'd fallen in love with—not because she looked like her old self, but because she looked like someone learning to be new.

The goldfish circled on, three seconds at a time, while they sat together in the quiet certainty that some things, unlike memory, could begin again.