When You Remember Me

“Wyatt, my love,” she said resolutely. “I want a divorce.” Today, Annabell had told him first thing in the morning. This time, Wyatt didn’t even have time to finish preparing Annabell her usual morning coffee. “Wyatt, I mean it. You never listen to me!”

“Yes, I understand how you feel, my love.” This time, she had forgotten they had already gotten one. “I want to listen to you. I just wanted you to have breakfast first. I wanted you to be rested.”

Usually it would take until the end of the day for Annabell to recall this point in their relationship.

“Wyatt, you’re always away — your boss never wants you home!” Her voice grew. “You’re always away! You might as well be married to your work!” Most often, by the time they went to bed, an hour or so later, she would remember they had remarried two years after their separation.

He set down her breakfast porridge and her morning paper, careful not to tip the fresh orange juice he had already placed for her in the corner of her quilt cloth table mat.

She began to sob, minding the warm food placed before her. “You’re never around, Wyatt!” She cried. “You’re married to your work! You’re always so tired. There’s nothing left for our marriage when you get home. Nothing left for us!”

Wyatt by now had long been retired, and longer before then, had quit his career in travelling sales to instead teach English at their children’s old high school.

“You’re never around, you’re never around, you’re never around!” Annabell began to stir and pick at her breakfast furiously, weeping between bites of oatmeal, brown sugar, cranberry, and walnut. She gulped down large slurps of orange juice that had laid waiting for her at the corner of her table mat, before a single fibrous strand of citrusy pulp could settle sweetly down at the bottom of her glass.

The newspaper remained untouched as Annabell attacked her breakfast. Even absent the need for any morning routine, Wyatt wrestled against the desire to join in eating with her, lean in to give her a morning kiss, and do the crossword by her side. He remained firm and listened quietly, assuredly, pulling away from the small yet powerful habit drawing him in, like an ocean tide from the undertones of his subconscious mind.

“You’re never around, Wyatt!” She cried. “Don’t you love me?” she cried. “No, you don’t love me!”

She sobbed softly. “Do you?” Her guard had fallen. Wyatt saw that it was now safe to express his affection.

“Of course, I love you, dear!” Wyatt gushed as he sat down next to her, taking hold of her hand. “More than anything or anyone.”

Annabell began to sob more slowly. The bemoaned woes over past absences and relived grievances began to fade.

“You love me, Wyatt?” she asked quietly. He looked at her drying eyes closely— in her vulnerability, Wyatt’s wife was so lovingly childlike. “More than anyone?”

He squeezed her hand. “More than anyone or anything.”

“Then! I love you too!” Annabell batted at her drying eyes and sniffled relieved. Her long hair fell softly onto his shoulder as she leaned against him. Lingering tears soaked into the dark green fabric of his forty-year-old zip-up wool sweater. “More than anything and anyone!”

She sighed calmly, filled-up and soothed. “Of course, of course.” She spoke calmly. “Of course.” She squeezed his hand tightly back and paused to look up at the ceiling, now again at Wyatt, and now again to herself as the anticipated realization slowly dawned on her. “Ah, my love.” She spoke with both assurance and surprise. “That must be why…” she ventured boldly to say. “…why we remarried.”

—

The children and the grandchildren had come to visit later in the day. It wasn’t until late evening that the house was quiet again with just the two of them.

Wyatt had played cable news softly in the background. The gentle glow of evening news seemed to always soothe Annabell, and he wrapped her around with a blanket earlier that evening. She (and he, more than admittedly) enjoyed sweetly falling asleep to hearing tomorrow’s weather; their local baseball team winning, losing, or how they would not be playing until next spring; the latest advertisement for a miracle mop she would have used twenty years earlier.

By now Annabell was asleep; he and his eldest had made sure to safely bring her to bed before final kisses and departing for the evening. Wyatt did the dishes quietly downstairs. After their remarriage, Wyatt had renewed his religious devotion: the second ceremony took place at their local Catholic church, St. Vincent’s; as he scrubbed each dish by hand, a statuette of the Virgin Mary and child from their windowsill peered softly over him (he had insisted on cleaning and putting everything away himself with the grandchildren crying and sick since his eldest and daughter-in-law had arrived).

After several years of her condition, Wyatt for the most part, was able to take every forgotten moment, every reclaimed memory he should say, with a light heart.

Sometimes the moment would be benevolent, or even a cheerful surprise, like a time capsule that filled him warmly with nostalgia, or a rediscovered black-and-white photograph of their life together. There was forgetting that their eldest was no longer a highschooler and, therefore, did not need to be picked up from soccer practice three times a week after school; quickly requesting their children’s favorite ice cream flavors before Wyatt left for the grocery store to have at the ready for their boys when they got home; wanting to know when they would first renew their vows (they had done so after their first fifteen years of marriage, and again after their remarriage); re-remembering time and again that they were in their second marriage.

Even when her re-remembering was painful, Wyatt, filled with unwavering love, had for the most part found comfort with time (and practice). It could be a pleasure and a pain to relive every moment, every memory- the first years together, the later years apart, the children growing up, the renewal of vows, their children’s children, their babies. Somehow (gratefully, miracuously), Annabell always remembered that they were in love.

Wyatt towelled off the last ceramic dinner plate that needed drying. He looked around the kitchen calmly. The silver cutlery was done. The teflon pans could wait until the morning, he decided, so they could soak overnight. He had already sweeped and mopped the floors this morning — the hardwood floors somehow remained clean past dinnertime and a visit that included two toddlers and a newborn.

He went to turn off the hallway and kitchen lights, pausing just before doing so. There in the corner was the old photo gallery tucked away in their heirloom display chest. Only the slightest trace of dust gleamed from the worn oak shelves and chest’s window panes.

Staring into the glass, their dual wedding photos stood side-by-side; each seemed to glow warmly, gently from within the faded frames. He smiled wistfully before turning off the last light.

Sometimes even he would forget there ever had been, or ever could be, a time without Annabell at all.