I swallowed, tasting bitter regret. "I understand."
He stood, holding out his hand. "Remember, take it slow, one day at a time. Don't overdo it—either of you. Watch for symptoms, try and get back into a routine, and contact me immediately if you see anything atypical."
Everything about this situation is atypical.
He gave my hand a firm shake, then dropped it to walk around the desk to see me out. "Good luck, Calvin. I'll notify my team that they can start processing Emily's discharge."
"Thank you, Sir. And thank you and your team again for everything."
I walked out of his office, through the waiting room, and down the corridor heading toward Emily's room. I stopped two doors down, leaning heavily against the wall as the reality of our situation hit me like a Mack truck.
"Fuck," I muttered, looking down at the papers in my hands, pretending to read them as a distraction while I processed my thoughts.
I hadn't told Emily about our separation. Hadn't told her about the fact she wasn't the same woman I'd married five years ago. Years ago, I'd married a generous, kind, klutzy boho violinist who believed in following your dreams and loved dancing in the rain.
We'd met in college at a party. She'd been dressed in shorts that bared her gorgeous tanned legs; I'd been wearing a faded graphic shirt with a reference to The Office. We'd bonded overour shared love of sitcoms. I'd taken her back to my dorm, and we'd made love under the covers on the nasty single bed, her falling asleep on my chest and smothering me with her cascade of curls. I'd found a share-house to move into the following month—complete with my own room and a queen bed.
For four years, we'd lived in various share-houses, travelling the world on dime budgets and eating some of the cheapest, tastiest food I'd ever eaten in my life. Both of us were trust fund babies from rich backgrounds—our parents more than willing to grant us the privileges that came with that upbringing. But Emily and I hated the noose that came attached to those privileges. We'd talked for innumerable nights about our desire to be our own people, to make our own way in the world.
And to achieve that, we'd lived on tight budgets, working multiple jobs to make ends meet.
I'd loved it. I'd loved the cold nights and the hot summers. The tiredness and the ache. I'd even loved the shitty ramen and cheap grilled sandwiches with soup. All because she'd been with me. Emily. My boho, clumsy, free-loving hippy who played the violin naked, who danced like no one was watching, who seduced me with laughter and smiles that lit her eyes in a way that I knew each one was from her soul.
And then, following our wedding, she'd gone. Not overnight. It wasn't as if a switch had been flicked following the wedding. No, this had been a slow transition. An almost imperceptible adjustment over a long period until one day, I came home and found a stranger where my wife had once lived.
Following a nasty altercation over Thanksgiving dinner, I'd decided to move out. The Emily I'd fallen in love with, the Emily I knew and loved, had been trapped behind a woman obsessed with looks and status. A woman with a better relationship with my mother—the devil—than me.
She doesn't remember any of it.
And thus, the crux of my current dilemma. My wife in the hospital room was not the wife I'd walked out on nearly two months ago. The wife in the hospital room was funny, kind and profuse with her praise and gratitude. She'd been devastated at the loss of her memories and yet took it all with a smile. She'd joked about my hair and compulsively and sincerely thanked every single nurse and doctor who assisted her, worrying about what the right present would be to get them as thanks.
She was the Emily I used to know. And I couldn't help but be glad, thankful, even hopeful about her return.
You're a fucking piece of shit.
I was a fucking jackass. An absolute piece of shit. I knew it because, honestly, who the fuck was glad their wife had lost her memories?
Apparently, this asshole. Fuck.
I had two options. Either tell her the truth and see where that took us, or start again—this time with the Emily I'd fallen in love with.
Don't be a douche. She deserves to know how fucked up we are.
I blew out a breath, folding the papers in my hands and tucking them into the back of my jeans.
I'll tell her tonight. Sit her down, and let her know what's up. Maybe when we see the counsellor, we can talk about how we got here… and what we can do to prevent it from happening again.
The hardest part would be erasing the hurt she didn't even know she'd caused. I knew I'd hurt her as well, but she didn't remember any of those moments. She'd reverted to our original relationship while I had years of memories to combat.
I'd only watchedAvengers Endgameonce. I'm sure the writers had meant it to be a movie about triumphing over adversity and overcoming great evil to save those who had beenlost. But all I'd ever been able to concentrate on were the people who were left alive. Those who hadn't turned to dust. Those survivors had lived for years with their grief. They'd had to rebuild their lives and form new bonds and friendships. They'd lived through the slow decay of cities, through the recovery and clean-up.
Those were the ones I pitied. Not the ones who had gone and then returned. I'd always felt shitty for the survivors who'd rebuilt their lives only to be reverted back once more.
What about moving on? What about those who grieved and then got on with their life, trying to build a new future, new relationships, new memories in that post-life? And then, just as they'd begun to achieve some kind of normalcy, their loved ones had returned, and that process needed to begin again.
Fuck you're a morose bastard.
But I couldn't deny that's how I felt right now—like those people in the movie. The Emily I'd known, the Emily I'd grieved, had suddenly returned from the dead—leaving me shellshocked and impossibly conflicted.
