“I’m sorry, but we just don’t know.”
That phrase, and its myriad variations, was one I’d heard a lot in the past three months. That’s how long Liz had been in her coma. She was driving home late from her office, and then… something happened. Her car went off the road and flipped multiple times. The injuries were severe; multiple broken bones, internal bleeding, a lacerated liver, and more. A traumatic brain injury had placed her in a coma which she had not awoken from yet.
In some ways, that was a blessing; most of the major surgeries had been done, and her body was able to mend more rapidly since she was at rest. She didn’t have to suffer through all of that pain. The downside, though, was that we didn’t know if or when she would wake up. I say “we,” but I mostly mean me, her husband. She has no siblings, and her parents passed away before we were married ten years ago. Some of her coworkers and friends visited, but most of those had stopped showing up as the days turned to weeks; the rest when the weeks turned to months.
I had been told “we just don’t know” about how long her recovery would be, if she’d wake up from the coma, what the effects would be on her brain, if she’d be able to have a normal life again, why her car went off the road, and so many more things that I can’t even remember. The only solid answers I had gotten were that her physical recovery was coming along well, and that I needed to be prepared for the worst.
I sighed. I knew Dr. Taggart was just trying to set expectations, but the expectations she was setting were essentially that I should have no expectations. I slumped in my chair. “So… hell, Doc, what do you suggest I do, then?”
Her voice was soft and kind as she looked at me from across her desk. “John, I know that this has been very hard for you. But the truth is…” She smiled. “It’s rare that we see a spouse as devoted as you’ve been. You’ve been here every day and slept here most nights. But honestly? None of that is going to help her.”
She steepled her fingers. “What I suggest is that you go back to living your life as best you can. The few spouses I’ve seen that do what you’re doing… they either try to get back into the world and hope for the best, or they end up putting their entire life on hold for months, years even, and…” She trailed off. “Liz may come back to you, John. I hope she does. But is it even going to be ‘you’ if you’ve spent every waking hour here with her? What’s going to be left of ‘you?'”
Of all of the doctors I’d dealt with, Ellen Taggart was my favorite. A little older than me and Liz from a chronological standpoint, but with wisdom far beyond her years. I nodded unhappily. “… Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I just…” I sighed. “I always– I hated when you’d see a woman get sick and her husband abandoned her. Asked her for a divorce. It was just so… cowardly. Disloyal. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to…” I searched for words, but they wouldn’t come.
Ellen smiled. “You want to be supportive. I get that, John. If Liz were here, really here, that’s exactly what you’d be doing. But she’s not. You’re not supporting her by being here; you’re just tearing yourself down.” I started to object, but she raised a hand. “I’m not saying don’t visit. But your life is outside these walls, even if the biggest part of it is trapped inside. We’ll take care of her. I promise. And if she comes back to you, you’ll– being out there, being yourself for you, that will fortify you for what you’ll need to do. It’ll give you a reserve to draw on, one you’re spending right now by being here every day worrying.”
“And what if she doesn’t come back?”
“Then you’ll find a way to let her go.” That was something else I appreciated about her: her frankness. “You need to accept that as a possible end to this, John. You’re young; you have a life ahead of you. You’re not going to be able to come to grips with the fact that it might be one spent apart from Liz if you’re always here. Because, while we just don’t know– ”
I grimaced, and she let out a small chuckle. “Trust me, I hate saying that phrase almost as much as you hate hearing it. ” Then her manner was back to the kind, if slightly grim, one I was used to seeing. “While we just don’t know, the outlook isn’t good. If she hasn’t woken up by now, the odds of her ever doing so are low. The odds of her coming out unchanged are almost nil. And you need to prepare yourself for that.”
I knew this, of course. I’d had plenty of time to research it in the hospital, sitting next to Liz’s bed or in the waiting room as she went through surgery after surgery. But hearing the kind doctor I’d grown so fond of laying it out for me? That made it all really sink in. I felt tears well up in my eyes and nodded. “Okay. Okay. I’ll– Thank you, Doc.”
“Ellen. I think we’re on a first name basis by now, John.” She took a deep breath and sat up. “I know it’s hard to hear all of this. And it– it might feel like giving up. But it’s not. It’s not a retreat or a surrender. It’s– you’re a runner, right? I think you mentioned that you and Liz used to do that together.”
There were a lot of things that Liz and I used to do together that we hadn’t in some time. “Yeah, that’s right. Let me guess, ‘it’s a marathon, not a sprint.'”
She laughed. It was really a very charming laugh. “Hey, now, those are my cliches. I’m still using them!”
With a chuckle, I wiped my eyes. “Sorry. I… yeah, I know. I just– it’s hard. But you’re right. I’m not doing her any good here, and I’ve just been wallowing.” It was true; even from a practical standpoint, I needed to get back to work. My boss had been extremely understanding, but I didn’t want to take advantage of that kindness. Especially since, if she ever did wake up, I’d need more time to help with Liz’s recovery.
“I’m going to give you some literature and some referrals. You’re sadly not the first person that’s had to deal with this; I think you’ll find there are a lot of people that are going to want to help you through it.”
She was right. There were support groups, books, specialty therapists, all sorts of resources. I got back to work; I’m a software development consultant. My previous duties had been to act as a sort of hired gun, riding into town and doing code reviews, personnel assessments, whipping teams into shape, and then riding into the sunset. That meant that I had to travel a lot, sometimes for weeks at a time. It was lucrative, but it came at a cost: my marriage.
I can’t put it all on myself, of course. Liz was… difficult. It was hard to admit this while she was lying in a coma, but when I came home from my most recent trip, I had been ready to divorce her. She’d grown distant; cruel even, at times. Our lives were headed in two different directions, she as a successful realtor and me in my career. We were both competitive people, and it rankled her that, even with her successes, she still earned less. We used to run together as a way to stay connected, but with my travel, I fell off. She was able to run further and faster; at first, we’d go together and she’d just smoke me. Later, she stopped asking me to go with her at all.
I know that sounds petty, and it was; it’s not like running was the basis of our relationship. But it was indicative of other things going wrong. We used to try to do everything we could together: trying new foods, traveling, talking about our jobs and helping each other find solutions, even just sitting quietly and watching TV or reading. It was the togetherness that mattered.
That slowed and eventually stopped. I traveled more for work, getting to see places we’d wanted to visit together. Admittedly, I mostly saw their airports and hotels, but it was something, in her mind, I was doing without her. At home, almost in retaliation, she’d go to try new restaurants by herself, then tell me she wasn’t interested in going back once I got there. “Nothing very interesting, sorry.” We stopped relying on each other as sounding boards. Eventually, we even got to the point where even when we were in the same room, we weren’t together.
It hadn’t always been like this. We had met fairly young, just out of college. Nothing particularly special about our tale, just two people that met through friends, had a spark, and found that it became a roaring bonfire. We were happy for a long time. But in the last couple of years, we just weren’t anymore. Any attempt to reconcile by me was seen as weakness by Liz. Any attempt by Liz was seen as disingenuity brought on through guilt by me. It was a nasty spiral that would have certainly ended in divorce.
Except.
Except, one night, when I happened to be home in between trips, I received the call that told me Liz had been in an accident. All of the shit that had come before, my work, the running, the petty nonsense about travel and restaurants and fighting over the remote before separating to other rooms: it all became crystal clear that it was just bullshit. I threw myself into waiting by Liz’s bedside for months, being the loyal watchdog for her. And… and it didn’t matter. She didn’t come back to me. And now it was time to return to the real world, or at least to a limbo that resembled it.
I was able to change my work duties; more code reviews, less of the rest of it. Some additional actual programming work, which I had always preferred. I was greeted back in the office with… well, people tried to be kind. But there’s a primitive fear of tragedy, even as we try to be kind to those suffering it. It’s the same instinct that made our ancestors look for witches when harvests failed, the terror in admitting that sometimes bad things just happen, and they could happen to you. No one wants to be reminded of that; I wasn’t exactly a leper, but I didn’t get invited out to happy hours much, either.
I got back into running. I was pretty out of shape, and it felt good to have something I could control. I thought of the times Liz and I had run together. Tried not to think of the times when she started to shut me out. The nice thing about having half an hour, and then later an hour, of running time all to myself is that it gave me plenty of time to listen to audiobooks. Some of them were about my immediate issues; Ellen had been right, there were a lot of options there.
But some of them were about other things. Books on rebuilding intimacy, something I knew we’d need to do if Liz came back to me. Science fiction, both good and trash; thought provoking hard scifi and “Max Steelglare and the Harems of Beta Fuckzor 7” both found space on my iPhone.
Philosophy, too. The Stoics were useful to me, but I found great comfort in Buddhist philosophy as well, and found even more in the places where the two converged: the notion that the source of suffering was longing, the idea that the way to peace was to accept what was happening as it happened. Not being passive, but also understanding that there was only so much you could do to change your situation, and that accepting that was a key to happiness.
I can’t claim I was ready to be a bodhisattva or anything, but I was coming to terms with my new reality. Work had stabilized, and I was feeling healthier physically and mentally. I still made time to go sit with Liz and read to her once or twice a week, or just talk about life with her. Things were balanced. Stable.
“John. You need to come to the hospital. Liz is awake.” Ellen’s voice was on the phone, urgency barely veiled behind her kind professionalism. One hundred seventy three days after the gentle intervention in her office, the one that told me I needed to figure out how to adjust to my new normal, she was upsetting it again.
I was in my office when I received the call. It takes thirty minutes to get from there to the hospital. Nineteen minutes after I answered the phone, Ellen was meeting me at the front door as I ran through. “Wait! John, wait. You can’t go up there yet. We need to talk.”
I skidded to a stop. “What? Why? Is something wrong? Is– ”
Ellen sighed. “She’s…” She looked around at the comings and goings in the lobby. “Come on. Let’s go talk somewhere private.”
She led me to the elevator and to her office. I was almost vibrating with anxiety during that three minute trip, but she stayed silent. That made me feel even more anxious. Once inside her office, she motioned me towards a chair while she sat behind her desk. Her “concerned doctor” face was on now.
“Physically, she’s in very good shape, all things considered. There’s been muscle atrophy, obviously, but she’s had plenty of time to heal from her broken bones and surgeries. She was disoriented, but that’s also to be expected. It’s been a few hours, and the immediate disorientation seems to have passed. She understands where she is, what’s happened to her, and people she’s talking to. That’s all very positive. The problem…” She sighed. “The real problem is that she seems to have lost almost all of her memories.”
“What?!”
She nodded. “A certain amount of memory loss is common; it’s rare that a patient with that level of trauma remembers everything, or even anything, surrounding the incident that caused it. But she doesn’t remember– John, she doesn’t even remember her name. When we said ‘Elizabeth,’ she just looked at us like she didn’t know who that was. Same with ‘Liz,’ ‘Ms. O’Neill,’ and ‘Mrs. Barnes.’ The ‘Mrs.’ one really upset her, though; she doesn’t– doesn’t remember you, either.”
I couldn’t speak, just sat there with my mouth hanging open.
Dr. Taggart pressed on. “She has knowledge of things, concepts, ideas. She knows what a car is, but doesn’t remember what type of car she owned, or even that she’s ever driven one. Her skills seem to be there still. We asked her how one should evaluate a house for sale, and she started to rattle off a checklist. So there are some things still there. And, of course, her language skills seem unimpaired.”
She leaned forward, a sympathetic frown on her face. “John, I need you to understand: this is going to be one of the most upsetting things that’s ever going to happen to you. More than Liz’s accident, maybe. I can tell you ‘she doesn’t remember you,’ and I know that you’ll understand that. But you’re not really going to understand it until you walk in the room and she looks at you with a blank expression. And it’s going to…” She bit her lip, trying to decide whether she should continue.
Her face took on a new resolve, a sad, pained look. “When I was a resident, I worked with a number of patients with traumatic brain injuries. The most hurt I’ve ever seen on a husband’s face wasn’t when I had to tell them their wife was dead. It was when a wife had had a stroke and had lost her memory, and she not only couldn’t remember him, but recoiled from him. You are– you’re going to be a stranger to her. I’ve explained that you were married, but– but you need to be ready for the possibility that you’re the only one that will remember even a hint of that.
“And I need you to be prepared, because, as much as I like you, John, ultimately it’s Liz that’s my patient. The last time we were here, you told me how much you wanted to support her. I need you to do that now, even if it’s the worst pain you’ve ever felt. Because whether you face this today or in ten days, it’s not going to get any better.”
I nodded, the teachings of the Stoics foremost in my mind. I couldn’t control this, but I could endeavor to control myself. “Okay.” It came out weaker than I meant it to. I cleared my throat and said clearly and firmly, “Okay.”
Liz’s doctor smiled a brave little smile. “Thank you, John.”
“She’s my wife. Of course I…” I shook my head. “What… is she ever going to get her memory back? Please don’t say ‘I’m sorry, but we just don’t know.'” Her mouth opened and closed quickly. “Give me as realistic an assessment as you can.”
“Unfortunately, that is the most realistic assessment I can give. We– the truth is, in terms of neuroscience, we’re barely past the leeches and humours era. She may wake up tomorrow and remember everything. She may never remember a single thing. It’s most likely going to be somewhere in the middle.”
Great. “Is there anything I can do to help it along? Take her places she knows, that kind of thing?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t really work like that. Memory is very complex. It’s one of the most complex issues in neuroscience. Most people think that it’s like a computer, where you store a bunch of stuff and then recall it; it’s not. As best we can tell, it’s a series of connections between collections of neurons that let you put together a story that you tell to yourself each time you remember a specific occurrence. That story may or may not be accurate, and as you recall the same memory under different conditions, the act of remembering can actually change a memory.
“But that’s… there are a bunch of different types of memory. ‘Muscle memory’ you’ve probably heard of. There’s the related phenomenon of ‘procedural memory,’ like Liz’s recall of how to judge a house’s value. And then there are the triggers that can allow us to access memories we wouldn’t otherwise be able to: scent, music, all sorts of other things.
“You’re probably not going to be able to take her to your house and have her go ‘Ah! I remember my life now!’ She might remember something about the house, and that might set off a chain reaction to let her get back a few other things: an emotional memory about your first dinner there, or your first fight. Maybe that chains off to remind her of something else. But those chains are probably going to be short and weak. If she has any favorite scents, those are a strong way to provoke memories. Particular pieces of music, especially if she’s intentionally tied one to memory; the ABC song is a common example for most people.”
Her face darkened. “You also need to be aware that… there’s a chance she’s going to feel ambushed by memories if she has them out in the world. She might have a panic attack as she tries to realign her current self with something she learns. She’s going to feel… unreal for a while, until she either remembers enough to feel stable, or until she builds enough new memories to build a new sense of self. But when she learns something that upsets that stability, it’s probably going to be hard.”
I nodded. “Okay. I think I get it. So… what do you need me to do?”
A broad smile appeared on her face. “She really is lucky to have you, John. A lot of people would have already insisted on going to see her, and even now, instead of asking for that, you asked how you can help. If you keep that attitude… she may not get her memory back, but she’ll have a strong foundation to rebuild from.
“As to what I want you to do, I want you to go see her. If she doesn’t remember you, I won’t ask you to not be upset, but try to be understanding. If you can’t deal with it, I’ll be there, and I’ll help you get out of the room without upsetting her; just follow my lead. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
“That’s all anyone can ask. Come on.”
She entered Liz’s room first, then popped her head out a few moments later. “Okay, come in.” I entered the room and saw Liz sitting up for the first time in half a year. She was reclined against the bed, but it had been brought upright; I didn’t know yet, but she was too weak to sit on her own.
My breath caught for just a moment; I knew she’d become emaciated by her stay in the hospital, but sitting up, it became really apparent. Her hazel eyes were sunken and tired; her beautiful strawberry blonde hair was matted with sweat, sweat from what I later realized was the exertion of just being awake. I forced a smile onto my face, and Dr. Taggart asked, “Liz, this is your husband, John. Do you recognize him?”
My wife looked at me, studying my face, tilting her head on one side as if a change of perspective might bring some new insight. I could see the lack of recognition on her face, and it was quickly followed by surprise, then disappointment. “I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t.” I couldn’t tell if the apology was to me, the doctor, or herself.
I tried to do as Ellen had asked, to keep my emotions in check. I sort of succeeded. “Liz– ” I heard my voice crack, and I worked to get myself under control. “Liz, I’m just glad you’re awake. We… we can worry about the rest of it later, but I’m so happy you’re back with us.”
Her expression was strange; More surprise, then a wary smile. “Thank you… John.” She rolled the word around in her mouth. “I– I know this… it’s hard for me. I can’t… I can’t imagine it’s easier for you.”
A half-hearted laugh was all I could manage. “Yeah, it’s– ” I shook my head. “We’ll get through it. I’ll be here with you all the way. I love you, Liz.”
Liz’s face was hard to read; sad, but not for herself. For me. Pity. “I– Thank you, J– John. I, um…” She looked away, tears in her eyes. “Can I have a little time to myself? I know that…” She started to cry.
My instinct was to rush over to her and wrap her in a hug. But as I took a step, Dr. Taggart shook her head, stopping me in my tracks. “We’ll let you get some rest, Liz. Try to sleep if you can.” The stranger in my wife’s body looked away and closed her eyes.
Once we were outside, Ellen put her hand on my shoulder. “You handled that far better than I could have asked for, John. Thank you. But– but now you’re going to have to keep doing that. For as long as she needs. Will you be able to?”
I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If not me, then who?”
Liz’s physical therapy started a few days later. Hours a day of grueling physical effort to get her to the point where she could walk, sit comfortably unassisted, get into and out of a chair, all of the things we usually take for granted. It took a month before she was cleared to leave the hospital.
In all that time, she never regained any significant memories. A few things here and there: a cartoon she saw on the TV gave a brief spark of her childhood, and she remembered the name of a friend from the second grade; a tune played on the muzak that reminded her of a trip she’d taken one time. Nothing to do with me and her, nothing to do with our life.
I tried; God knows I tried. She told me that she could remember a few faces, but no names or context to go with them. I brought in our wedding album, her college and high school yearbooks, pictures of our vacations, and anything else I could find that might spark a memory. Nada. Ellen told me this was always a longshot, but I had to try. Liz’s frustration mounted with each new attempt, and I ultimately decided it was time to put the pictures of the past aside and focus solely on her physical recovery in the here and now.
Near the end of the third week, I went out to grab some lunch. “Do you want anything, Liz?” I smiled. We hadn’t had any real kind of connection, but she also no longer saw me as a stranger. It was a start, at least.
Her face became unreadable for a moment, then she forced a smile. “No, I’m good. Thanks. I’ll see you soon.” I nodded and went on my way.
I had learned to curb the urge to try to find out what was wrong when she acted this way. She was Liz, but she wasn’t my Liz. There were echoes there, tics and preferences that I recognized, but she wasn’t my wife. It was like the old stories of the faeries replacing someone with a changeling– there, but not right. I know that sounds horribly uncharitable, but I had spent seven months waiting for my wife to wake up, and even after that happened, even after almost another month, she hadn’t really come back to me. I did what I could to not show the discomfort, but I know I wasn’t entirely successful.
Liz no longer saw me as a stranger, but I thought she was starting to see me as an interloper instead. Yes, I was her husband, according to me, the hospital, and the state, but she had no idea who I was. As I ate, I asked myself, “Am I making her recovery here easier or harder? Am I here for me or her?”
I returned to her room with no clear determination. Then, I realized I had a very easy way to make my decision: ask her. “Liz– ” That tiny flinch again. I sighed. ” — Do you want me here?” She opened her mouth to speak, but I pressed on. “I know you’ve been uncomfortable with me around. I’m not– this isn’t me trying to make you feel guilty or anything. What I care about is your recovery. If I’m impeding that, I shouldn’t be here.
“And if you don’t want me here, I’ll still support you in any way I can: financially, a place to live, all of it. But I– I don’t want you to feel like…” I looked down, unable to hide my expression, the Stoics failing me. Or maybe me failing them. “I don’t want you to act like you want me here if you don’t. You’ve got enough to work through without dancing around my feelings.”
Her voice was soft, but I could tell she was conflicted. “John, no. It’s not– ” She paused. “Please come over here, next to the bed.” I shuffled closer to her, and she let out a little laugh. It was nice, something I’d rarely heard from her since she woke up. Rarely heard for the last few years, for that matter. “Closer, silly. I’m not going to bite.” A few more shuffling steps brought me to her side. “There. That’s better.”
She reached down and took my hand. “Look at me, John. You are– ” She squeezed my hand. “You’re the only thing that’s kept me sane for the last month. I know I’ve seemed distant, but knowing you would be here made this so much more bearable. I need you here. But– ” I saw her eyes were rimmed with red; she’d been crying again, not for the first time this week. ” –but I can see how this is hurting you.
“Every time I– every time I’m not her. When I don’t react like you expect. When I don’t remember a thing I should. It’s not fair to you. You’re putting all of this energy into taking care of me, but no one’s taking care of you; not even you. I can’t keep doing that to you. Especially if– especially if–” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Especially if Liz never comes back.”
I nodded. “I know… I can see it hurts you, too. Ah ah, my turn to talk. It does. I don’t know if it’s because it’s bothering me, or if it’s bothering you, or if it’s both and it just turns into some kind of feedback loop.” I tentatively reached out and stroked her cheek; it was the most intimate gesture I’d allowed myself, and she responded by pressing herself into my hand and sighing happily. It felt… good. Real. Like a real connection between two people, not the two of us pussyfooting around the missing woman that separated us. “I’ll– I promise that I’ll try to do better. But if you have any ideas about how…” I paused, hoping she’d come up with something, because I sure as hell hadn’t.
“I do, actually.” I went to draw my hand away from her face, but she moved her hand to it and held it there. “I– I don’t know if I’ll ever be Liz again. And it– you’re right, it hurts when I see I can’t be her. Hurts when I see how I’ve disappointed you, even– Tut! — even if you do your best to hide it. So… what if we stop worrying about Liz? What if I stop trying to be Liz?”
“What do you mean?”
She took her hands back, placing them in her lap and gazing intently at them as she spoke. “According to Dr. Taggart, my name, my full name, is Elizabeth Mildred Barnes. What if I started calling myself something besides Liz? Mildred is– ” She shook her head in disbelief. ” — yeah, that one’s right out.” She looked up at me with a smile. “But what about Beth?”
I laughed, and she looked a little hurt. “No, no! I think it’s a great idea. I think… I think it’s a really thoughtful suggestion, thoughtful for both of us. A reminder for me that you’re, well, not Liz anymore. Maybe you never will be. And a way to take the pressure off of you to not feel like you need to be. It’s a great idea.”
Her head tilted quizzically. “Then why the laugh?”
“Because Liz hated ‘Beth.’ It was a surefire way to get her mad at someone, if they used that name.” I let it go unsaid that, in recent years, I’d “accidentally” called her by her hated nickname more than once for just that reason. “That’s… it’s perfect. It’s a perfect choice.” Her face lit up.
“So. Beth. I ended up having this extra cookie from the cafeteria, and I was wondering…” She grinned broadly as I slipped the contraband to my new partner in crime.
It wasn’t a perfect fix; I still slipped up. She was still, in the back of my mind, Liz more often than Beth at first. She still moved like Liz, still smelled like her, same accent, same figures of speech; all of those little things that, if they’re off, let us know something is wrong with a person we know intimately. But over time, Liz took up less and less mental space, and Beth replaced her.
Part of it was that she was more comfortable now that she wasn’t trying to be Liz, but it was more than that. She was actively trying to be Beth now, and I wasn’t subconsciously trying to make her into Liz, or even a younger, earlier version of Liz before everything went wrong. With that pressure off, she became her own person.
I liked Beth a lot. It’s hard not to compare Beth and Liz, for obvious reasons. I don’t want to just go through a checklist of “Beth was like this, and Liz was like this,” like some kind of shitty 90s observational comedian, but some of that is just unavoidable. Liz was kind of uptight and insecure; her competitive nature sprang, I think, from that. Conversely, Beth had a very self-deprecating sense of humor, a real ability to laugh at herself that was so charming.
Both women had a huge amount of native intelligence. It was part of what attracted me to Liz in the first place, but in Beth, it was melded with a new thirst for exploration that felt, for lack of a better term, less affected than Liz’s need for new experiences. With Liz, it felt like she wanted to travel to a new place or try a new cuisine to say that she’d done it. Beth actually wanted to find out things, not just brag about them. I know that’s probably because of Beth’s tabula rasa nature, but it was still very appealing.
Beyond that, Beth was… comfortable. I just really enjoyed being in a room with her. She was funny. Inquisitive. A strange mix of innocent and worldly; I don’t mean that in any prurient manner, just that she lacked memory of certain things, while still retaining skills elsewhere. We’d be talking, she’d learn something new, and it was a huge delight for her. Occasionally, she’d teach me some new piece of skill-based knowledge, something I’d never known that Liz had known, that she hadn’t shared with me. I don’t know if Liz had intentionally hidden these things from me, or if I had never bothered to learn. But I wanted to know everything Beth could teach me, even as I wanted to show her the world.
Unfortunately her world, for now, had to be small. Once she was out of the hospital, I took her back home. I made her take what had been our bedroom, and I moved into the guest room. A few more memories were triggered once she was “home,” mostly small happy ones. The most significant, for us, was a morning coffee shared at our kitchen table early in our marriage; that was the first one with me in it, and it included a kiss. She blushed when she remembered it, shy as a schoolgirl in describing her remembrance. It was adorable, but I did my best to move along and limit her embarrassment.
We were just friends. I didn’t expect anything more than that; want, yes, but I did my best to put no pressure on her. I knew she liked me, but maybe not like that. I was steeling myself for the eventual “you’re a great guy, but” conversation. It never came. Instead, we embraced a unique blend of roles: a husband and wife that didn’t know each other; a caregiver with an unspoken and possibly unrequited crush on his charge; two roommates who shared a history one didn’t remember. I’d be lying if I said I was happy with how things were shaking out, but I’d already lived for some time in a house with a woman who had stopped loving me; at least this one liked me.
In the first months back at home, she had an interminable number of doctor’s appointments: therapist, physical therapist, outpatient check-ins at the hospital, and many more. In between, we did a whirlwind tour of the places I knew that she frequented. I say “I knew that she frequented,” because my divide with Liz had been sufficient that I was no longer sure everywhere she went when I was out of town.
Between her office, gym, favorite coffee shop, and a few other spots, she put a few more names to faces, but these reunions were bittersweet; she remembered the friends, but not their histories. And there were all of the people that she didn’t remember, who showed a muted version of the pain and horror I had felt when she looked at me and saw a stranger.
As part of her recovery, Beth needed to exercise. She and I started taking long walks each day; we talked about her history at first, but she started to ask about mine instead. I told her about my life both before and after I met Liz. I didn’t want to put too much pressure on her, but as she asked about our marriage, I was honest. Maybe she’d remember that she hated me, but at least she’d remember something.
One day, after we had finished our walk and were having something to drink in the kitchen, she point blank asked, “Jesus, how much of a bitch was I?”
I laughed. “I– honestly? Liz was kind of a huge one by the end. I’m not– I had my role in how things went bad, but it always felt like an escalating game of tit for tat. It was this extended prisoner’s dilemma scenario where, no matter how I’d try to reset and get us back to cooperating, she’d take it as a chance to score a win.” I’d avoided this for a while, but she deserved the truth, and she was strong enough now to hear it. “Beth, I… the night of the crash, I was waiting at home to talk to her about getting a divorce. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
Beth gasped, “What?”
I nodded. “I’d gotten back from a trip, and I just… the whole time I was on the plane home, I was dreading seeing her again. I knew something had to change, and it wasn’t going to be her– ” I stopped, realizing what I’d just said. “Oh, oh god, Beth, I didn’t mean– ”
She was dumbstruck for a long moment, then just started laughing, big belly laughs that had her doubled over. I looked on in horror, worried that I’d broken her, maybe set back her recovery by months.. She finally stopped and wiped a tear away, then patted me on the cheek. She giggled, “Well, at least something good came out of all of this.”
I could only look at her in shock.
She hugged me, the first completely real hug we’d shared, the first one that didn’t feel like she was doing it partly because she should, but because she wanted to. I could hear her voice quavering, like she was trying to not cry. “This has been– it’s all been– just so awful. But I– god, I needed something good to have come from it, some kind of, I don’t know, cosmic reason that– ” She fell silent and hugged me tight.
My arms encircled her, bringing her as close to me as I could. I felt tears on my shirt; there were tears on my face, too. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed this kind of closeness. Not thinking, I kissed the top of her head, and she burrowed her face into my chest. I felt her turn her face to the side, then she choked out, “Why?”
My voice croaked, “Why what?”
“Why did you– why didn’t you leave?”
“Because you’re– she was my wife.” She sobbed, an acknowledgment of what we weren’t. A longing for what should feel right, but didn’t.
We stayed that way for a while. I don’t know about her, but I spent the whole time wishing that some magic would come and make things right between us. That this embrace was the start of the next step in our relationship. Wished, but didn’t hope; hope was a step too far. Hope meant heartbreak. It meant–
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me. Not a big kiss. Not even necessarily one with a promise of more. Just a small, almost courtly kiss, like a princess rewarding her champion. She stroked my cheek and said, “I– I don’t know if– if we can– can be more…” She shook her head. “We’ll be– we’ll be whatever we are. But, god, John. I don’t know how a woman couldn’t want…” Her words trailed off, too much pain in the possibility. She gave me a sad smile and stepped away, heading to what had been our bedroom. I got a beer from the fridge. It was before noon, but, honestly, I couldn’t give a damn. I felt, simultaneously, more pain and more hope than I had since she first went into the coma. “Desire is the root of suffering,” indeed.
We were distant for the next few weeks. Not in a cool, uncaring way, but still giving each other more space than we had before. That was difficult at times; she couldn’t drive, and it was possible she’d never be cleared for it again. I wasn’t supposed to leave her alone for too long, either, just in case. I’d been working from home since she left the hospital, and what had been convenient before now felt almost stifling. When we were together, we were warm but slightly impersonal. Preferentially, we were apart.
We couldn’t find a way to square what we’d shared with the realities of our situation: there was so much tangled up in who we’d been to each other that trying to become who we could be seemed like an impossible task. Could she really love me, or would it just be gratitude disguised as love? Could she believe that I loved her, or did she only see duty to my absent wife? How much of what we felt was real, and how much of it was two people who had no one else and maybe could never have anyone else again?
Our impasse was broken in the strangest way: laundry day.
“Have you seen my black t-shirt?”
Beth became very focused on her folding. “Which one?”
“The kind of ratty one. The one I wear when we go for walks sometimes.”
“Oh.” She paused. “I, uh. I’ve been using it as, um, as a night shirt.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Her voice was quiet. “Because it smells like you.”
“Did– did it spark a memory or something?” That had happened before, a scent bringing up some little vignette from her past.
“No. I just– ” She looked away. “It– I like–” Her eyes closed. “It makes me feel safe.”
“Oh.” I stepped close to her and patted her shoulder. “That’s– that’s okay, then. I’ve got plenty of other shirts. Or do you– do you need a, um, a fresh one? I mean, one I’ve worn that’s– ” I sighed and started again. “Do you need one that smells more like me, because you’ve been wearing that one?”
She looked up at me. “Would you? Would– would that be okay? Not– ” She laughed nervously. “Not too weird?”
Beth was so pretty, her expression vulnerable and so earnest. My heart melted, and I know she could see it on my face. “No. It’s sweet; I’m glad I make you feel that way.”
“You do!” Her enthusiasm embarrassed her, and she looked away. “You do. I– Being here, with you. It feels– really feels like home.”
“I’ll be happy to give you one, but we’ve just done the laundry, so I can’t right now. They’re all clean. Can you hold out one more day?”
She laughed as she looked up at me. “I think I can manage.”
We finished the laundry and ate dinner. It felt intimate in a way it hadn’t been before. There was something there, a warmth both indefinable and very real. Nothing had really changed; we still had the unassailable wall, the power imbalance that made any deeper relationship suspect. Everything had changed; the wall had been breached, just the tiniest bit, an admission of the imbalance serving to make it seem less important. I made her feel safe. She made me feel wanted. Maybe that was enough for now.
We cleared the table and did the dishes together; it had been a nightly ritual before the recent distance. Lately, we’d been taking turns at the chore. But tonight, we returned to it together, and as we worked, we were closer physically. Before, she had tried to keep a little space between us as we worked, and I had tried to honor that. Now, we brushed against each other. She’d touch my arm, silently asking me to move to one side. I’d squeeze between her and the kitchen table, my body pressing lightly on hers; she didn’t pull away, and I think once she pushed back into me, but I couldn’t swear it.
We watched TV together for a little while, not quite snuggled up on the couch, but close enough to touch if we wanted. And we did. Just little, light touches and small intimacies: we held hands like teenagers on our first date; she patted my knee as she got up to get us drinks; she came back and leaned over as she handed mine to me, lingering just a little longer than she needed to. I’d catch her watching me out of the corner of my eye, and vice versa; we both smiled shyly and looked away. Things had changed, but neither of us was sure exactly how or how much, so we were being coy.
I yawned and stretched; it wasn’t the old standard where I tried to put my arm around her, just a general tiredness. “I think I need to head to bed. It’s been a long week.”
Her disappointment was evident; I think she was hoping that I had been going for the old yawn and reach. But she smiled as she said, “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” She offered her hand to me, and I pulled her off the couch. She hugged me, a nice, warm hug, then walked with me to the stairs, where we parted ways: her to our bedroom upstairs, me to the guest room downstairs.
I got ready for bed, brushing my teeth in the bathroom next door and laying out my clothes for the next day. I was about to change into sweats and a fresh t-shirt, my usual bedtime attire, when Beth knocked at my door. “John?”
I opened it, and she was standing there in my tattered black t-shirt and a pair of comfortable panties. Her hair was done in a loose braid to keep it from tangling in her sleep and she’d washed her makeup off. She couldn’t have looked any sexier than she did right now; this unguarded, completely honest version of her was everything I wanted. I could feel my mouth getting dry, so I swallowed and said with a smile, “Hey, Beth. Did you need something?”
She looked down for a moment, then up into my face. Uncertain. “I… ” Resolved. “You. I need you.” She chuckled. “I was going to try to do this cute thing where I came to ask you for your shirt, and then when you gave me yours, I’d take mine off, and… ” She shook her head. “I don’t want to play any more games. I want– ”
I took her into my arms and kissed her with an intensity and hunger that I’d restrained for months. The part of me that said maybe we could never be equals again, that we’d always have that wall between us? I didn’t give a fuck. I was going to burst through that, we were going to burst through that, smash our way through whatever obstacles we had to to find a happy ending for us. I was tired of Beth simultaneously being both my wife and not my wife, and it was time to tell Schrodinger to butt the fuck out of our lives.
She moaned into my mouth, and I felt her tongue slip inside. Her hands roamed across my body as I crushed her to me, finally settling on my belt, frantically trying to unbuckle it. My mouth broke from hers in a gasp as she succeeded and slipped her hand into my trousers, not even bothering with the buttons and zipper, grasping at my dick. “Oh god, John, I’m– ” She buried her face in my neck, nuzzling. “It’s– fuck, you’re so hard. I’m such a tease, I’m sorry, I– ”
My voice growled, “No.” She looked up at me. “No guilt. No worrying. Just us.”
A tiny nod, then a sly grin. “Just us.” She sank to her knees in front of me.
“Just you.. ” She undid my button and zipper and planted a kiss on my raging erection, our skin separated only by the thin fabric of my briefs.
“And me…” Her eyes were on mine as she rocked back on her heels. Taking the hem of her “nightdress” in her hands, she slowly pulled it over her head, teasing me with the curves of her body. There were scars there now, the remnants of the wreck that had left us here, but her beauty was still flawless in my eyes.
As the shirt passed up and over her round, large breasts, they were drawn up in the fabric, then dropped, bouncing tantalizingly. The pink nipples were hard and long, and I reached down to roll one between my fingers, pulling gently at it as she tossed the shirt aside. With a smile, she closed her eyes and purred. Then they were open again, a wildfire behind them.
“And this…” She pulled down my pants and briefs, then hissed with a sharp intake of breath. “This– this… god, this beautiful fucking dick.” She took me into her hand, wrapping her fingers around my shaft and slowly starting to stroke. With a chuckle, she said, “I don’t know how I could ever have forgotten this,” then leaned forward to take the head in her mouth.
It took everything I could not to cum as she started to suck. It had been so long, and even if I’d staved off the urges by myself, there was no substitute for the real thing. She released me from her mouth with an audible pop and started to stroke my cock with long, smooth strokes, bringing her other hand up to gently caress my sac. “It’s okay, John. Cum. Cum as soon as you want. You don’t need to hold back. I want to…” She kissed the head again. “I want you to cum for me. I need it. I need to make you feel good. Need to know that I can make you feel good, the way your wife should.”
My breath caught in my throat. “What?”
She leaned into me, rubbing my dick along her cheek as she looked up into my eyes. “Your wife, John. We’ll figure everything else out later, but– but, I’m going to be your wife. I’ll be–” She kissed my shaft, eyes closing for just a moment in an expression of reverence. “I’ll be everything for you: your wife, your lover, your slut, your best friend. Everything.” Pulling away again, she moved both hands to my cock, stroking faster, rubbing precum along the head and shaft as she did.
I moaned; she had told me not to hold back, but it was so exquisite that I didn’t want it to end yet. This was… this was not Liz. Liz had been so vanilla; not frigid, at least not at the beginning of our marriage. Passionate in her own way, but definitely a “lady.” Beth was… Beth was… “Oh, fuck, Beth. Fuck, I’m– ” She took me into her mouth, as much as she could, then further, taking me deep into her throat .My hands tangled in her hair, and I groaned her name as I came harder than than I had in years.
I was shaking as she pulled my cock from her mouth. Beth kissed it lovingly, licking at the little bits of spend that dribbled from it. As I twitched, she laughed with delight. I gasped, “Where– where did you learn–?”
Her brows knit together. “I– what do you mean? Isn’t… isn’t this– isn’t this what we–?” I could see her confidence begin to waver.
Pulling her to her feet, I growled. “No.” I kissed her fiercely, tasting faintly myself on her lips. “Better. So fucking good, Beth.” I kissed her again and felt her melt. My fingers tugged her panties loose then off, nearly tearing them in my passion to see her naked. In the back of my head, there was a nagging concern, but I wasn’t going to fuck this up. We had a fresh chance at us, and I was going to grab hold of it with both hands.
My voice commanded, “Get on the bed. It’s your turn.” Any trepidation vanished from her face as she moved past me into the room, out of the doorway where she’d just given me the best blowjob I’d ever had. She grabbed my hand, pulling me along, before she stopped at the bed and gave me a teasing grin. She opened her mouth to speak and I simply said. “Now.” She was both cowed and visibly aroused as I took charge.
Her taut, athletic ass taunted me as she crawled onto the bed. I could see her getting ready to turn around, to lie down. No. Something new for me meant something new for her. I seized her hips in my hands and shoved my face against her wet pussy, the thick, unkempt bush tickling at my chin. She gasped loudly, the unexpected sensation causing her to lose her balance. Her arms went out from under her. She was face down, ass up, kneeling prone on the edge of the bed as my tongue lavished attention on her sweet quim.
Soft little mewling noises tried to escape her mouth but were lost in the mattress that her face was pressed into. I pulled back for just a moment to suck at my thumb before returning to worshiping my wife’s sweet, sopping cunt. Beth gasped as my thumb slid between her cheeks and teased at her puckered starfish. Her head turned to one side to take in gasps of air, and then, quietly, to plead.
I pressed my thumb into her, and she let out a long, shuddering moan. Her hands found her ass cheeks and pulled them apart, signaling her desire. I pressed it all the way in and she pushed up and back against me. My tongue kept at her slick hole, but it wasn’t the focus anymore. No, her focus and mine were both on her other tight hole, the one Liz had only given to me on special occasions. The one that Beth was wordlessly begging me to stretch.
I obliged her. My left thumb, slicked with her copious juices, joined the right, and she groaned, “Yessss John. Fuck– fucking– oh, god, fucking open me up!” Both thumbs worked together, pulling at that elastic ring, teasing it, stimulating the sensitive nerve endings. I felt the familiar flutters in her body, the harbinger of a truly massive orgasm. My mouth left her for just a moment. “Cum for me, Beth. Show me how fucking sexy my wife is, you gorgeous fucking slut.” The words were barely out of my mouth when she pressed her cunt back to it and shuddered, howling my name. “Jooohn! Fuck– fucking– ah John, fucking love you!”
Her words were too much for me. Love. She loved me. This was my woman. This was my wife. She was going to see what that meant.
The orgasm was still making her body shake as I stood up and turned her over onto her back. “Say it again.”
Her eyes, unfocused and half opened, tried to lock onto mine. “F-fucking…” She shook her head. “Love you, John. So good. Such–” She shuddered, an aftershock passing through her. ” — Such a good man. Good hus–!” I entered her sweet, tight pussy, my hard cock ending her sentence in a sudden cry of pleasure.
“Beth.” She looked at me, pleading. “I love you, Beth.” A look of relief on her face, then her eyes rolled back into her head as I began to move in her. Her hands gripped the sheets, clawing and pulling them away from the mattress. “You’re going to be such a good wife to me, aren’t you?” Only a little, almost incoherent moan of assent passed her lips. Words failed us both as I began to make love to my wife for the first time.
I was gentle with her; I knew that soon, perhaps even tonight, I would take her roughly. Beth seemed to have a sexual need that Liz had never had, or at least had never shown to me. We would explore that together in time. But I wanted her to know that the John she’d grown comfortable with, the one she was trusting with her life and happiness, was the same one that was consummating our new marriage right now. That I could always be the safe harbor, the loving husband that she needed. She smiled up at me and put her hand on my cheek; I kissed it, and the look between us told me we both were finally where we’d longed to be.
But I’m only a man. And I had been alone for a long time, alone even with Beth here. I needed her with a passion I’d rarely felt. She saw the lust in my eyes, the lust that grew alongside my love for her, and crossed her legs around me. Her whispered urgings spurred me on. “Yes, John. Yes. Show me. Show me how much you love me.” Beth leaned up to kiss me just briefly before falling back onto the bed, her hands on my biceps, nails digging into them as I sped us to our shared climax.
I started to piston into her now, my need crowding out the gentleness I’d wanted to show her. She hissed, “Yessss, fucking show me!” I felt her tighten around me, another orgasm approaching, and gave into my lust for her. There were no real words then, from either of us. Only grunts and gasps, and excited, animal pleadings for each other. She came first, but only by a second; she was still cumming as my seed finished flooding her and I slumped onto her, pinning her body to the mattress with my weight. We laid there, sweaty and gasping, until I heard her voice, soft with sadness. “S– so good. So good. How much– ” A tiny sob. ” — how much am I missing? How much did I lose?”
That question preyed on my mind for the next two months. Not constantly, of course.. Most of the time, I focused on my not-exactly-renewal of my marriage with my wife that was not exactly the woman that I’d married. As we got closer, as she was willing to show her preferences to someone that loved her and that she trusted, I found how many of her tastes had really changed. Sometimes that was something like food; I had taken the lead in the preparation of our meals before, but she was a better cook, and once she took over that role, we started seeing a lot more Thai and Italian in the mix and a lot less American and Tex Mex. Other times it was movies and other pop culture. She threw herself into the things I loved and found that she loved them as well. The romcoms and serious Oscar-bait dramas that Liz had liked left her cold now.
Sexually, though? That was where I kept hearing alarm bells. She was passionate and varied in her tastes, a wild divergence from Liz. Maybe the biggest. There was almost nothing Beth wasn’t down for, and she often took the lead. Her love was an inferno, intense and brilliantly bright. But where there was fire, there was smoke: the enthusiasm could be chalked up to her exploring her tastes and trying to make new memories to replace the old, but the skills that went with that? No.
Liz gave a decent blow job, when she was still giving them to me, but Beth could deepthroat like the second coming of Linda Lovelace. She had knowledge, skill-based knowledge, of various kinks that couldn’t be learned from just watching porn; I knew that she did watch, and we sometimes watched together, with her pausing the video and exclaiming, “That, let’s do that!” But she had to have picked this stuff up somewhere else. Either she had learned these skills before we were married and then never trotted them out for me or…
I tried really hard to not think about that “or.” I knew that way would inevitably lead to heartbreak. But it wouldn’t go away, not entirely. With the demolished wall of our power imbalance in the past, this new one sprung up. It was in the distance for now, but we were rushing towards it at breakneck speed, and eventually we’d slam straight into it.
When I wasn’t mulling over those worries, though, we were mostly very content. We went out on dates, spent lazy Sundays on the couch and in bed, and tried to build our new lives together. We kept walking and then running; Beth was slow and tired quickly at first, but she rapidly gained in both speed and stamina. That last one had some really great knock on effects for other aspects of our relationship, but what really mattered was that she had something that she really loved doing. This was a place where Liz and Beth converged, and her old muscle memory combined with her joy of the sport meant she got very good very fast.
Eventually we started to look for new places to run: parks, jogging paths, nature trails, and the like. We had a few favorites, but it always felt like Beth was looking for something specific. Like there was a perfect path out there that she’d be happiest running. So we kept looking. And then one day, we found it.
We took off down the wooded path around a nearby lake, and she started to get a lead on me. This wasn’t that surprising; she would regularly lope ahead and then back to me. But this time, when she ran ahead and then back, I had to retie my shoe. I told her not to wait for me, and she took off again. I jogged to catch up, but a few minutes later, I heard a man’s voice cry out incredulously, “Liz?!” There were more words with raised voices, but not loud enough for me to make out.
My jog turned into a sprint, and I rounded a bend to find a young, athletic man with blonde hair and blue eyes reaching out for Beth. He looked confused, angry, and pained, all in one. It was a familiar look, a cousin to one I’d seen often recently on the face of Liz’s former co-workers and friends. She was shrinking away. Afraid? Angry? I couldn’t tell from this angle.
“Beth!” The man turned his gaze to me, and his expression cycled to sudden recognition then settled into a new one: fear. I skidded to a stop next to Beth. She looked at him like she’d seen a ghost. Her face was ashen, and I thought she might throw up. “Beth, are you okay?” She nodded mutely, still staring at the man. A stranger to me, but someone I was becoming certain she knew well.
He huffed, “Beth? What is he talking about, Liz?”
“Yes, Beth.” My voice was even, but certainly not friendly. This man was no friend to me. “And you are?”
The stranger looked taken aback. He shifted his weight and tried to puff himself up, his body language clearly showing discomfort. “I– Alan. I’m a– Well, I thought I was a friend of Liz’s. We used to run out here a couple times a week, but she disappeared a year ago. We were texting about our next– our next run, and then she just ghosted me.” His eyes shifted around when he gave details; probably lying, but whether in detail or by omission, I wasn’t sure.
“I’m her husband, and I’ve never heard of you.” He opened his mouth to talk, but I didn’t care to hear another lie. “Liz was in a car accident.” All the blood drained from his face. “She was in a coma for months, and she’s lost most of her memories.” I glanced over at Beth, but she wasn’t here with us right now; I’d seen this expression when something triggered the retrieval of a memory, but she’d never gotten this lost in one before. “She’s Beth now. She wanted– she needed a clean break from who she was before and who she is now.”
Then. Then I saw the look on Alan’s face, the one I was dreading.The one that indicated a deep pain at being loved and then forgotten. The one they warned me about at the hospital, the one I was supposed to hide from her. The one that only I should have had to hide from her. “I– ” He tried to conceal his hurt, but he couldn’t. I knew. He knew that I knew. And Beth did, too.
He cleared his throat. “I’m– I’m glad you’re back up and about Li– Beth. I’m sorry that– sorry about your– your accident. I hope I see you back– ” My glare told him that if he finished that sentence, there would be consequences that at least one of us wasn’t going to be able to live with. “I, uh, I need to get going. See you around.”
Our run was over. Beth watched Alan leave, sorrow written on her face. I nodded to myself, then turned on my heel and started walking back towards the car. Beth must have realized I’d gone and caught up a minute later. We didn’t speak on the way back, but we did stop once; she ran off into the bushes just off the path and emptied her stomach onto the ground.
The ride home was silent except for her sobs. When we got inside, I motioned for her to sit at the table before making her some tea. Neither of us wanted to do this. Both of us knew we had to. I set the tea down in front of her and waited for her to speak, but eventually I got tired of waiting.
“Liz cheated on me.” It wasn’t a question. There was no need to ask, just establish facts. She nodded. “Do you have any idea how long?”
“… A while.” She took a sip. “A long while. I don’t… I don’t know how long exactly, but… but I know enough to know that he… he looked different sometimes. Different times of the year, different clothing. A beard at one point.”
“How long have you… is his face one of the ones you’ve always remembered?” She was very quiet. Very still. “Please, just… just tell me.” She nodded. “The first one, right? The one you expected to see when I walked through the door, when your husband walked through the door after you woke up. That’s why you were surprised and disappointed, not just because you didn’t remember my face, but because– because you expected to see someone else. Someone you loved.”
She looked down and sobbed, her entire body wracked with sorrow. I continued. “It’s why you looked through all of those albums and school pictures. You were trying to find the person you were supposed to be with. Why you were so disappointed and angry when you didn’t find them there. And then later when you didn’t find them at your old work or the coffee shop or gym, why you seemed so… so…” I couldn’t say it. Desire and suffering, hope and pain, all dueling in my head.
She choked out, “Re– relieved. It meant– it meant I hadn’t– Liz hadn’t– ” She shook her head. “He was– he’s so young. I’d hoped that maybe– maybe it was a college boyfriend. I didn’t–” She coughed and took another sip of tea, then looked me square in the eyes. “Until I saw him today and– and remembered… more, I didn’t… They were, the memories were out of time. Impressions. A face, a place I didn’t recognize, a– ” She paused, not wanting to say something that would hurt. “Nothing from our life. I hoped– hoped that since I hadn’t seen him anywhere, that they were just…” She laughed ruefully. “That they were like that stupid fast food jingle that played through my head for a week after I woke up. Just a random set of memories that didn’t really matter.”
She looked away, her voice strained as she continued. “But then I saw him, and I knew that they did. I didn’t– not a lot came back when I saw him, but enough. Enough to put some context to– to everything.”
“Did Liz love him?”
Her lips tightened as she nodded, eyes still not on me. “Not… not in the same way that she loved you, at least not when you were first married. Not as much. He was– he was exciting. And she was angry at you. He was going to be– going to be enough.”
“Enough?”
She closed her eyes. “Enough for when she left you.”
I couldn’t find any surprise when I looked inside myself. Of course she was cheating. Everything fit together; she’d given up on us before I had. Her cheating wasn’t the reason our marriage was going to end. Our marriage was going to end, so she was getting her ducks in a row. Making sure she had a fallback. Not surprising, in retrospect, but still painful.
I had to ask. “Do… do you love him, Beth?”
She almost dove across the table to grab my hands. “No! No! No, god no! I love you! I only love you! I… I know how Liz felt, but I don’t– it’s like reading a story about a character, or watching a movie. I know how she felt, even kind of understand it, but I don’t– her feelings aren’t mine.”
“What about the sex, then? You– ” I sighed. “You’re nothing like Liz in bed.”
Beth shook her head. “No. That’s not– I am like Liz in bed. It’s just that she– she lied to you about what she was like. What she wanted. She– ” Her breathing was erratic. “That stupid fucking cunt. She needed to be– it had to be her goddamned show. She needed to dole out her affection like– like you were a puppet. A fucking pet. She couldn’t control– she hated that you were getting to see more of life, travel more, a ‘better’ career, and she– ”
Her face was a mask of rage. “You may have wanted to end your marriage, but knowing what I know now? I fucking hate her.” Her tears started to fall again. “Hate– hate me. She’s part of me. And I hate her, so where does that leave me? I wish I’d never remembered anything at all. Wish my world was just– ” She whimpered, “Just one where I woke up and you were there, and that’s all it was. No memories but the ones I build with you.”
I squeezed her hand. “Beth, I… honey, I still love you. She’s– you aren’t Liz. She’s, like you said, she’s like a character in a book. She’s– ”
My wife exploded, “She could come back, John! She could– she could– what if she’s like a cancer in my brain? What if it metastasizes, takes me over, destroys Beth? What if she– what if I wake up tomorrow and there’s enough of her back that I hate you?” She was shaking with fear. “What if I take– what if you don’t get to have Beth anymore? How can I do that to you? I can’t stop it from happening if it– ” The panic in her voice broke my heart.
“Beth. Beth!” She stopped and looked at me. “You’ll still remember you, Beth. Still remember you and me. You won’t– you won’t hate me like that. I know.”
She wailed a single word, “How!?”
Now it was my turn to look away. “Because I do remember. I do know what it was like to… I hated her. I– things were so bad. I stayed longer than I should have, knew we couldn’t pull out of the dive and I– and I…” I looked back at her. “I was going to cheat, too.”
Her hand slackened on mine. “What?”
“The last trip. The one where… where I was on the plane home and knew I needed to end things with Liz. It wasn’t– it wasn’t just because of how bad things were. I had…” I took a deep breath to calm myself. “There was a woman from another office. We’d worked together on a couple of projects. She’d– I’d used her as a sounding board. About my home life. She wasn’t part of– lived in another state–”
I shook my head. The details didn’t matter. “The last night there, we were in an elevator together, and we– we were… If the doors hadn’t opened, if one of our co-workers hadn’t come in then, it would have continued in one of our rooms. The next day, when we were getting ready to leave, I told her– told her the next time I saw her that I’d be free. And I headed home, knowing that it was only by chance that I’d stayed faithful.”
I looked down. “I remember all of it, the good and the bad. I remember Liz changing her mind about us having kids, how she refused to until she was ‘established’ in her career. Which was just shorthand for her having the upper hand between us, I realize now. How she pushed me further and further away as she ‘lost’ in her mind. How–” I sighed. “How, looking back, how obvious it was that she was having an affair, how she was probably laughing about getting one over on me.” Beth was very still suddenly, confirming my suspicion.
“But I remember you, too. I remember my– how much it hurt when you didn’t recognize me. When you chose a new name, how bittersweet that was for me. The way we inched closer to each other over time, becoming less strangers and more friends, and then eventually lovers. When…”
I kissed her hand. “When you told me that you wore my shirt to sleep in because it made you feel safe. When you came to my bed and took that shirt off, told me you were my wife.” My face was wet. “Everything since, even this– this painful new, old knowledge. It’s all part of us. I hated Liz, and I love you. That’s how I know. Because I have all the memories, wanted and unwanted, and I’m still here desperately hoping that– that– that you and I will grow old together. That, if you want, we’ll be able to watch our children and grandchildren from the comfort of our worn out old recliners. That we– ”
Beth leaned across the table, silencing me with a kiss. It was sweet but passionate, a promise of the future, a silent vow between us that there would be an us. She stood and pulled me along with her to our bedroom.
Once there, my wife undressed me, kissing the exposed skin as she removed each piece of clothing. She led me to the bed once I was naked and bade me lay on it. When she disrobed, it wasn’t some overtly sexy striptease, just my wife displaying her body, scars and all. It was all the more intimate for its lack of artifice. Her eyes were on mine as she climbed onto the bed and straddled me.
Her hands pressed flat on my chest as she kissed me. “You’re right: Liz is our past. John and Beth are our future. And if she– if she shows up, we’ll face her together. You– ” She kissed me again, softly. Her hand rested over my heart, and she brought my hand to rest over hers “This– us. We’re strong enough to face our past. Together.” With a chuckle, she purred, “But that’s not what I want right now.”
She took me in her hands and placed the head at her entrance. “I want to build a new life with you.” She slid down, slowly, a low, soft groan escaping her lips as she accommodated my full length. Her hand slid mine from her heart down to her belly. Beth smiled beatifically down at me, nothing but love on her face. “I want to make a new life with you. I want to feel it grow inside me.” She began to move and her eyes fluttered closed as she savored the sensation. “Mmmm, you feel so good, John. So perfect.”
I traced along her side, and she giggled, ticklish. The giggle turned to a gasp as my hand moved to her breast and began massaging it. I breathed, “I love you, Beth,” as my wife gave me the pleasure only she could. My other hand reached down between us, the thumb teasing her clit.
She moaned her love for me and began to move faster, gliding up and down my shaft. “Oh- ah! Love– oh god– John– Love you!” A tweak of her nipple drew out a little cry and she grabbed the offending hand, whining as her orgasm drew nearer. Bringing it to her lips, she kissed it and held it tightly, a lifeline between us.
My other hand shifted to her hip. The beginnings of a frustrated little whimper started in her throat, but it was quickly replaced by a loud cry of pleasure as I used my new leverage to hold her steady so that I could begin thrusting upwards. Beth released my other hand and began to tug at her own nipples, throwing her head back at the sensations coursing through her. I took the opportunity to grab both hips and start enthusiastically fucking my wife’s slick, tight pussy.
“Cu– cumming! John! Please! P-please! Need you need n– need–!” Her words became nonsense as she lost control. They were a strange, primal song that possessed me, that drove me as I drove into her. As she started to wail, my voice joined hers, even as my body slammed upwards into her and held there, cock pulsing, sowing the new life she desperately wanted into her fertile womb. We laid together after that for a while, but my wife was far from done with me that night, and I was far from done with her. We finally slept in the early morning, exhausted from our couplings.
The world moved along, and we with it. Little memories would crop up from time to time, mostly about mundane things. Occasionally they were about Liz’s infidelity, which drove Beth into a funk until I could take her into my arms and remind her how little I cared about what Liz had done in her body. My “first wife” was like the monster in a slasher movie, and we were never sure if she’d rise up, trying to destroy our lives.
But ten years passed, the same amount of time Liz and I had been married, and she never did. Instead, our household became complete, with the birth first of Ellen and then Duncan. Dr. Taggart was the godmother to our eldest, of course. It was a time of scraped knees and sleepless nights, adjustments on top of adjustments. It was one of the happiest of our lives.
Twenty years passed, and our little ones fled the nest. We cried when we came home the day after we dropped off Duncan at college. That weekend, we reacquainted ourselves with every surface of our home, embracing our empty nest years and each other with gusto. We found new hobbies and friends. We traveled, reconnected with ourselves, and fell more in love than ever.
Thirty years passed, and Liz became barely a shade; no new memories had sparked in years, and we’d long since stopped worrying about her influence. But she gave us one last gift; I’d like to think it was an apology of sorts. We were at Ellen’s wedding. Our daughter was beautiful, standing with the man I’d just given her to. The priest said the words, “You may kiss the bride,” and Beth stiffened. A broad smile spread across her face, and she leaned her head on my shoulder. Our wedding. She remembered our wedding.
We were together for the rest of our lives, into the years of grandchildren and retirement and all the rest. We never wavered in our loyalty or our love. In the end, I was sorry that Liz and I hadn’t made it work, couldn’t figure out how to escape the spiral of competition and jealousy. I was sorry for what Beth suffered through, the pain and the loss of her memories. But I was forever grateful that, at the end of her struggles, we each found the love of our life. That we created the memories that mattered together.