Forgetting My Husband Set Me Free

In the fifth year of our marriage, Simon Walker started forgetting things. A lot of things.

At first it was small. For my birthday he gave me a pair of stud earrings, then stood there holding them up to my ears, turning them this way and that, as if puzzled. My ears aren't pierced.

Later he forgot I was allergic to shellfish. The first time he ever cooked for me, he emptied most of a jar of seafood paste into the dish. I nearly went into shock. I spent a month in the hospital.

Later still, he forgot I was in the car and locked it. I was trapped inside for a full day and night, and it happened to be the day I went into labor. Through violent contractions, I delivered the baby myself. The labor went wrong, and the baby died.

It wasn't until that day that the doctor looked at me, quiet, his voice almost weightless:

"You're slowly losing your memory. It's a psychological condition. We call it dissociation."

"The pieces you lose, the time you lose, it's impossible to say how much. Maybe five days. Maybe five years..."

My fingers tightened around the test results in my hand.

This time, it seemed, I was the one doing the forgetting.

Dr. Perry let out a sigh.

"You should go to Simon. He's one of the country's leading figures in ACT. He has far more experience with this kind of treatment than I do."

"His schedule is full."

"You're his wife. You can use his priority slot."

My fingers curled, rubbing the hem of my shirt over and over.

"There's only one priority slot."

I'd gotten up before dawn that morning and sat in the hospital lobby the whole morning, and finally Simon arrived. I'd barely opened my mouth.

"Simon, you promised you'd give me your priority access today, so I could be seen."

He paused, and right then I knew he'd forgotten again.

"I forgot. I'm sorry, Delilah Cox."

His tone was as flat as if he were remarking on what a bright, pleasant day it was.

"The slot already went to Karen Swanson. She's in a really bad place emotionally."

He glanced at me again.

"You're with me every day, and you seem perfectly fine. There's no real need for you to see anyone."

Beside him stood Karen. My best friend.

She was tucked behind Simon, and she stuck her tongue out at me, playful.

"Delilah, I'm just borrowing your husband for the day."

With that, she went skipping after Simon into the therapy room.

Maybe out of some guilt, Simon turned his head to look at me as he stepped through the door.

"Wait for me at the hospital entrance after your appointment. I'll drive you home."

Dr. Perry heard what he said, and the look he gave me was full of things he didn't say.

After my appointment, I went obediently to the hospital entrance to wait for Simon.

He doesn't like being interrupted while he works.

Last year, when I was pregnant, I was waiting in line at the hospital for an ultrasound and wanted to step into his office just to rest my feet for a moment.

He snapped at me on the spot: "Get out!"

His voice was loud enough that the other patients waiting jumped.

Under the blazing sun, the sweat ran off me pale and thin as broth.

Karen came out of the hospital cafeteria with lunch and looked at me, surprised.

"Why don't you wait inside?"

I shook my head.

She gave me a baffled glance, then carried the two trays and shouldered past the long line of patients into his office.

She'd finished her own appointment long ago.

I stood there quietly watching that tightly shut door.

One second, one minute, one hour...

Karen never came out.

It was a long time before I finally looked away.

I waited from daylight into darkness, until the last light in the hospital went out.

Dr. Perry came out and saw me, and it startled him.

He called Simon.

It took half an hour for Simon to come.

His brow was knotted tight.

"I told you to wait, so you just wait."

"Can't you think for yourself? You couldn't have just taken an Uber home?"

But in the half day I'd spent waiting for him at the hospital, I had forgotten the way home.

But watching his face darken, I never let the words out.

The rain came down in sheets, and he held an umbrella over me as I got into the car.

It was a short walk, yet that umbrella felt like the most honest set of scales.

By the time I climbed in, my whole shoulder was soaked through.

I hadn't eaten all day, and my stomach chose that moment to growl.

Without thinking, he shifted the takeout container on the back seat out of view.

"Seafood noodles. You can't have those."

He didn't drive straight home. He looped across half the city to drop the noodles off at Karen's place first, then turned back.

So that was it. During the stretch when he'd forgotten me, he'd been out buying Karen a late-night meal.

We got home, and right up until he went to sleep, he never once asked whether I was hungry.

I woke the next day starving. I hadn't bought groceries, so I boiled some frozen potstickers for breakfast.

After I'd finished my share, I took out the notebook I'd just bought.

I was afraid that one day I'd forget everything.

I wrote down all the important things, and only then did I realize they were all about Simon.

His likes and the foods he wouldn't touch, every little moment from our three years of marriage.

I also wrote down the do-over wedding, six days away.

The first time we held a wedding, I stood alone at the venue and waited for half an hour.

Only then did Simon call.

"I forgot we were getting married. Today's my defense for the full professorship. It's important."

"The wedding... let's just do it next time."

I'd waited five years for that wedding.

So I put it on the first line of the first page.

I was right in the middle of writing, "Simon loves the corn potstickers I fold by hand," when

Simon, eating his breakfast, suddenly looked up.

"These are a lot better than the ones you made before."

The tip of my pen stopped. Then I crossed out what I'd just written, stroke by stroke.

My second follow-up appointment was three days later.

All I remember is the grim look on Dr. Perry's face.

This time I went home on my own. I'd written down where home was in the notebook, so I couldn't forget.

But when I got there, the key I'd used for five years didn't work for the first time.

The door wouldn't open. I'd wondered whether something was wrong with my memory.

I'd been fumbling with the key for a while when a brand-new one reached past me and slid into the lock.

It turned without the slightest resistance.

I followed the key up and found Karen.

And, behind her, Simon.

"We changed the locks. I forgot to tell you."

"The old locks were five years old. Worn out."

I listened to him, then looked at the rusted key in my hand.

And I couldn't help feeling it wasn't only the lock he'd swapped out.

He went on:

"Karen's depression has gotten worse. She'll be staying with us for a while, so it's easier for me to treat her."

He said it with total certainty. Not a discussion. A notice.

I didn't say anything.

But when I pushed the door open, I found the houseplants had been swapped out for sunflowers.

Karen smiled. "Too much green. Sunflowers make you feel a little better."

The sheets had been changed too.

"Cashmere is so much more comfortable than plain cotton."

Simon didn't like having his picture taken. The only photo of the two of us had stood by the bed.

That, too, had been replaced with a photo of me and the three of them.

Karen looped her arm through mine, tilted her head, and asked me.

"Delilah, you don't mind, do you?"

I only looked at Simon, and found he'd said nothing at all.

A sudden exhaustion settled over my heart, and I set that flimsy little bag of medicine down hard.

Karen snatched it up at once.

"Delilah, what did Dr. Perry prescribe for you? Is everything all right?"

Simon barely glanced at it.

"When Perry treats someone, you can't take too much of what he prescribes."

Karen looked at him, curious.

"Then, Simon, your skills are so good. Why don't you treat Delilah yourself?"

He went silent.

Colder than winter snow.

A long while passed before I made out his low murmur:

"A case as complicated as yours is already more than enough to keep me busy."

That night, I tore out the last few pages of my notebook.

On the day of my third follow-up appointment.

I called an Uber.

As I got into the cab, I saw them from a distance.

Simon was holding the umbrella over Karen, steady and careful, not a single drop of rain touching her.

Only then did I notice that Simon's umbrella could tilt after all.

When the appointment ended, Karen came out too.

"Delilah, it's been so long since we had a girls' day, just the two of us. Simon's still at work, so let's go out and walk around."

"And we can try on wedding dresses while we're at it, to get ready for your makeup wedding."

She was holding a car key. It looked familiar. It was Simon's spare.

My hand tightened.

Years ago, Simon forgot me in the car. I was trapped inside for a full day and night.

Right as I went into labor, while the pain in my belly was at its worst.

I called Simon countless times, and not once did he answer.

I grabbed whatever was within reach, shut my eyes, and pressed it to my belly.

I performed surgery on myself. But the baby was gone all the same.

By the time Simon arrived, what he saw was me crouched beside the trash can, staring at the lump of flesh inside, not even a hundred grams.

Murmuring under my breath: "Baby, good baby, go to sleep now."

He held me like a madman, his tears running into the hollow of my neck, cold.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry"

"My phone was off."

More than once I'd thought that if only I'd had a spare car key, maybe my baby wouldn't have died.

There were only two keys. Before it all happened, I'd asked him for the other one.

He didn't give it to me.

Even after the baby died, he still didn't give it to me.

Back then, I didn't understand why he held onto it so stubbornly.

Now, I understood.

Karen drove Simon's car with practiced ease and took me to the bridal shop.

She was more eager than me, the bride. When she went to try on the bridesmaid dress, she handed me her phone.

The moment I took it, dozens of notifications about "Simon" popped up on the lock screen.

I stared at it for a long time. Before Karen stepped into the fitting room, she gave me a little smile.

"Delilah, the passcode is your birthday."

And with that, the fitting room door slammed shut.

I hesitated for a long while, then finally, with great effort, swiped open the screen.

Like a thief, I scanned through the messages quickly.

Hundreds of messages sent. The most recent exchange between him and me was from last month.

The newest one read:

"A new seafood hotpot place opened up on the north side. You love seafood. Let's have that tonight."

My fingers trembled.

This morning he'd promised to come home for dinner tonight. He'd forgotten again.

Then, as if some force had taken hold of me, I tapped into his social feed.

There were so many posts I'd never seen. A feed he'd kept hidden from me.

All of them were photos with Karen.

I counted them. Over a hundred photos, more than a dozen cities.

The most recent was the lake country. The farthest was the northern lights at Lofoten.

The farthest Simon and I had ever gone together was a coffee shop a few streets from home.

The pinned post was a trip to Disney.

It showed the date. It was the same day he'd missed our wedding.

In the photos he smiled so naturally, nothing like the stiffness whenever he posed with me.

He'd lied to me.

The truth was, he liked having his picture taken just fine.

Karen came out, and like a thief again, I pressed the screen dark.

She gave a soft, smothered laugh.

"Delilah, I've been generous enough to let you see all my secrets."

"Years ago I handed Simon over to you, didn't I? Shouldn't you be a little generous too?"

"Lend me your husband to play with for a while."

That year, after Karen found out the man I'd quietly loved for eight years was Simon.

She broke things off with Simon all on her own and left the country.

That year, Simon chased her flight path across the world for three months.

Everyone said Karen had deliberately handed her boyfriend over to her best friend.

And later, Simon and I really did get married.

I opened my mouth, and found all of it lodged in my throat.

Karen laughed again and patted my stiff shoulder.

"I'm just teasing you, Delilah."

"My best friend's man? I'd never touch him."

After I got home that day, I tore out a few more pages of my notebook.

Two days before the wedding redo.

I swallowed a few melatonin pills, and still woke in the middle of the night.

The hall outside was lit up bright, light seeping through the gap under the door.

The door didn't muffle much. I could hear every word.

"Let's change the venue to the place where you and I first met. We've already been to Bali, it's boring."

"I've picked out the hair and makeup too. Royal court style!"

"And the photography team. I went with the very best, can't have them making me look ugly."

Karen went on and on, and Simon never once said she was wrong.

Just like that, in a few quick lines, they overruled the wedding I'd spent five years planning.

I'd never been to Bali. It was a regret of mine.

I loved the traditional style, the homeland's meaning of growing old together.

All of it changed, except for the wedding vows.

Karen looked them over and didn't strike them down.

But Simon, who'd let everything else slide a moment ago, ran his eyes across them.

He pointed:

"Never to part."

"This line is too heavy."

My heart clenched all at once.

I'd written the vows myself, six hundred words pouring out of me. And they were also the very oaths Simon had spoken when he begged to marry me.

Back then he'd said them so easily. Now he called them too heavy.

Karen laughed.

"Then just pretend you're saying them to me."

"Actually, Simon, you still have feelings for me, don't you?"

"Stop it."

Simon's tone hardened a little.

But Karen wasn't the least bit upset.

She counted them off on her fingers, one by one.

"Back when I slit my wrists, you dropped Delilah at the altar without a second thought and left her standing there alone, so humiliated."

"And that other time, when I said for the second time I was leaving the country and never coming back, you locked Karen in the car on purpose, begging me not to go."

"You even switched your phone off. You said that day, all of Simon belonged to me, completely."

So it wasn't that he forgot. He locked me in the car on purpose.

Killed my child on purpose.

"So you see, Simon, you say one thing and mean another."

"Enough!"

Simon cut Karen off, but his voice was all weariness.

"There's no going back for us."

Karen pressed on:

"You only married Delilah back then to spite me, didn't you?"

Simon was never good at lying.

In the long silence that followed, my heart sank, bit by bit.

He didn't deny it.

I got up and tore out the first page of my notebook.

The evening before the wedding redo, I went in for my fourth follow-up.

I looked at Dr. Perry, who kept sighing one breath after another, and said calmly.

"Take me off the medication. It's not working."

As he saw me out, Dr. Perry still couldn't stop himself from barging into Simon's office.

"Do you have any idea how serious your wife's psychological condition has gotten? She's about to forget"

Simon cut him off.

He kept writing in the medical file, not even lifting his head.

"I'm a psychologist too. She's at my side every single day. You think I wouldn't know whether something's wrong with her?"

"Besides, it's been five years. Through all of it, Delilah has always been strong."

That line became the last blade, twisting hard into my heart.

So he had known all along. He knew everything I'd swallowed for all these years.

And he chose to pretend he couldn't see it.

His forgetting wasn't a bad memory. It was selective. He simply chose to forget the people and things that didn't matter to him.

Dr. Perry started to say something more, but I pulled him back.

He saw me shake my head, opened his mouth, then said nothing at all.

The day of the redo wedding.

I woke in that vast room, and there wasn't a single person in it.

On the nightstand was my notebook, and tucked inside was a plane ticket bound overseas.

There was only one line written in the notebook, in my own hand.

"Run!"

I didn't hesitate for a second. I grabbed the ticket and headed for the airport.

While I was checking in, a call came through.

The screen showed "Simon Walker."

I answered, and a frantic voice burst out from the other end.

"I forgot to come pick you up. Delilah, just grab a cab and get to the wedding yourself."

There was another woman's voice mixed in with his.

"Simon's just used to only ever bringing me along. Don't hold it against him."

The man's voice kept pushing:

"Everyone's watching. You're the only one missing."

I knit my brows together:

"Who are you?"