“You could hang that up,” Dr. Kay said.
“It’s fine here.”
“Fine.There’s that word again,” she said, smiling gently at me. “So, tell me. What’s going on?”
“I saw Daniel. We talked.” If she was surprised by my confession, she didn’t show it. “I mean, it wasn’t planned or anything. I ran into him outside a bar after a birthday party.”
She nodded. “And how was it, seeing him?”
I let out another long breath, through my nose. “Weird. Confusing. But also nice.” I went to twist my wedding band, my stomach dropping at the sight of my bare ring finger.When would this sink in?
“Tell me about the ‘nice’ part.”
It seemed an odd question because the answer should have been obvious. It was nice to see him because I missed him. But then I reminded myself part of accepting what was happening to me meant saying stuff out loud, to give it a different perspective. “Clarity leads to clarity,” Dr. Kay was fond of saying, and even though it seemed nonsensical, it resonated.
“I still feel things for him I know I shouldn’t, but it wasnicebecause seeing him made me feel relaxed. Like I wouldn’t have to explain myself to him, and that was a relief.”
“Because you feel like he knows you so well?”
I nodded. “Exactly. It sounds ridiculous, because in reality we don’t know each other at all anymore. We haven’t talked in years. But still. It was comforting to run into him.” I paused for a moment. “Especially because things had blown up with Matt at the party.”
“What happened with Matt?”
I had been all set to talk more about Daniel. To tell her about meeting him for coffee, and how I’d confided in him about what was going on—or at least about most of it—and he’d suggested we meet again the next week. I wanted to discuss it more, get her opinion and feedback. Hoped she might say yes, I should see Daniel as often as I wanted to because it could only help my brain as it tried to fill in the blanks and reshape the out-of-place bits. So when she asked about Matt, I was momentarily quieted, as I tried to come up with a segue back to Daniel.
“Lucy? Is it okay if we talk about Matt?”
“Yeah, sure. I...I was going to... Absolutely,” I stammered. “What was the question?”
“What did you two fight about?”
“Oh, that. He told someone at work what was going on. With my memory,” I replied. “We had agreed to keep it between us.”
“I see,” Dr. Kay said. “How did you feel learning that?”
“Well, based on the fact I walked out on him, not great,” I said with a small chuckle. “Sometimes my emotions are like giant tidal waves, totally out of control. I didn’t handle things as well as I could have.” I cleared my throat, picked a piece of lint off my sweater. “I know it’s hard for him, too.”
“That’s pretty understanding,” she said. “You know, Lucy, it’s okay to be angry with Matt. He broke your trust, and right now trust is pretty critical for you.”
I considered what she said. She was right—I needed to be able to trust people in my life, now more than ever. But I also had to find ways to keep moving forward. “Being angry is exhausting,” I said. “And I’m already so worn down—trying to remember what’s true and what I’ve made up—I need things to be okay with Matt.”
“And are things ‘okay’ with Matt?”
I paused, opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again. I thought about Jake’s party, our spontaneous “date” in High Park, the Halloween story Matt recounted, the anniversary gift tie, which had led to a very satisfying evening. “Better? I don’t know how to explain it.” I shook my head. “We’ve been... Well, we’re sort of back to the way things were before. In the, uh, bedroom.” I blushed, embarrassed more by my inability to come right out and say we were sleeping in the same room, doing things couples do.
“I still don’t remember any part of our life before my accident. Sometimes I even forget he’s not only my friend,” I said. “But I’m having these...feelings for Matt. Feelings you don’t have about your friends.”
“What do you think those feelings mean?” Dr. Kay asked.
“I’m not sure,” I replied without having to think about it. “Not yet, anyway.”
Dr. Kay shifted in her seat and watched me closely. “Lucy, as we’ve discussed, you know there’s a chance these changes in your memory will be permanent. And if that’s the case, you will be a different person going forward than you used to be. Which is okay! This is a transition, perhaps even more so for those around you because they remember past-Lucy.”
I could tell whatever she had to say next was important by the way she leaned forward, clasping her hands and settling them on her bent knees as she observed me. “You have the right to change your present if it doesn’t fit with the future you envision. We know it doesn’t line up with the past you remember, and the future is a big question mark at this point, isn’t it?”
I nodded, bit my lip because I was trying to keep the tears at bay. I understood what she was saying and it made perfect sense. Sometimes, as I lay in the dark with Matt sleeping soundly beside me, I fretted about never finding my way back to him. To us. And then shame would worm through me because I knew I would be able to move on; I would be okay without Matt. Though I was beginning to understand it wasn’t as easy as one might think to leave behind a past you didn’t remember.
But what would that do to him, if I up and left? DeclaredhisLucy dead—gone the day she slipped and fell, obliterated as her brain shifted across the midline with impact, leaving deep bruises where so many of her critical memories were stored. No, I couldn’t leave him. Even if staying meant letting go of Daniel, for whom I had feelings that were comparatively easy to articulate.
