In His Amnesia, I Learned to Walk Away

1: 1

My husband had intermittent amnesia. He could never remember the things I told him.

On our wedding anniversary, I carried the last dish to the table,

and said quietly, My stomach's been bothering me. I want to get a scope done tomorrow. Could you take me?

He looked at me, puzzled. Hmm? What did you just say?

His childhood sweetheart, Tamara Cobb, was sitting right there, and the way she smiled looked almost like a dare.

She let out a little cough. "Oh no, I think I'm catching a cold."

Elijah Sawyer turned to her at once, all worry. "How did you catch a cold? Did you kick your blanket off again last night?"

Then something seemed to dawn on him, and he looked back at me, apologetic.

"Sorry, Paula Swanson. I can never seem to hold on to what you say."

I said nothing. I just quietly left the table.

The next day, I went to the hospital alone, and was diagnosed with a threatened miscarriage.

I called my husband. "We might be losing the baby."

Same as always: "Huh? What did you just say?"

The call hadn't dropped, and through it came Tamara's laugh.

"I'm dying, she's not seriously making something up to get your attention, is she?"

"I bet she'll never figure out in her whole life that this is a game."

...

Then came Elijah's voice, laughing. "This game really works. Last time, when her mom was sick, I took you to Disneyland, and when I got home I told her I didn't remember any of it. She didn't even blame me."

Tamara couldn't stop laughing. "Next time, when she's on her period, give her ice water and say you forgot. I'd love to see the look on her face. Hahahaha."

I gripped the phone, and a cold ran all through me.

A game?

Not long after we married, Elijah told me he had intermittent amnesia.

He would forget the things I said, forget my birthday, forget that I was allergic to seafood.

We went to all the major hospitals. None of them could find a cause.

The department head at the hospital where he worked told me gravely that it might be a rare condition.

Frightened, I gave up my graduate studies and stayed home full-time to take care of him. Three meals a day, every one of them made with care.

And it turned out they were telling me this was a game?

I didn't make a sound. I just calmly hung up the phone.

The tears fell without a word, landing on the back of my hand.

The doctor quickly pulled out a tissue and handed it to me. "Miss, don't cry just yet."

"A threatened miscarriage doesn't mean the baby can't be saved. If you rest properly and follow the treatment, there's still a good chance."

I looked at the doctor and forced out a smile.

"There's no need, doctor."

"Just schedule the procedure for me. I don't want this baby."

Walking out of the exam room, I leaned against the wall, and my stomach began to cramp again.

To carry this baby, I had suffered for two years.

Ovulation shots until my whole belly was covered in marks,

herbal medicine until my sense of taste went numb, and after every dose I hunched over the toilet, dry-heaving.

The hormone drugs sent my immune system into free fall.

Frequent stomach pain, migraines that lasted all night.

Countless deep nights, I curled up in bed, hurting too much to move.

I shook Elijah awake. "My head hurts so much... could you get me a glass of hot water?"

But he just rolled over, his back to me, his voice thick with sleep. "What did you just say?"

His amnesia had flared up again.

Every time it flared, he didn't just forget what I said. He turned mean, too.

I grabbed his arm and begged him, crying. "I feel awful... I said, please get me a glass of hot water..."

He shook my hand off and pulled the blanket over his head.

The pain wiped out every last bit of my reason, and I broke down sobbing.

Only then did he sit up and snap at me, irritated.

"Can't you show some sense? The doctor said you have to keep your emotions stable while trying to conceive. You're hysterical every single day. If it affects the baby, whose fault is that?"

"You don't know I'm sick? You won't let me sleep, and if my condition gets worse, who do you think ends up carrying that burden? You."

I fought the pain with everything I had.

For the baby. For him.

And from beginning to end, it had only been a game.

Since he'd chosen to forget, then there was nothing left for me to say.

I sent my advisor a message. Professor, that tropical field research project you mentioned before, can I still join it?

2: 2

By the time the procedure was over, it was evening.

I pushed open the front door, and laughter spilled out from the living room.

Elijah and Tamara's friends were all in my house.

They'd been middle-school classmates, running around together for more than ten years.

Back when it started, the doctor had suggested he spend more time with familiar friends, that it would help his recovery.

So, all in the name of treatment, they came by every few days like it was nothing, treating the home I'd so carefully put together like a hotel.

At the sound of the door, they all turned to look at me at once.

A few of them traded a knowing glance.

Tamara cleared her throat on purpose and said with a smile,

"Speaking of which, Eli and Paula have been married three years now."

"Somebody's amnesia just never gets better, does it? How about I help the two of you remember a little?"

Elijah pushed an orange segment into her mouth. "Remember what?"

"Remember how good you used to be to her." Tamara laughed behind her hand. "You were so devoted back then. Picked her up from work every single day, waited in line half an hour to buy her chestnut cake."

Elijah looked at Tamara, puzzled. "Hm? What are you talking about?"

The game had started again.

Tamara widened her eyes. "No way. You don't remember any of that?"

He shook his head, baffled. "I don't."

"I did things like that for her? I was that pathetic?"

I stood in the entryway and looked at him,

and my chest just went tight and sore.

So in his heart, all the care and tenderness he'd once shown me

had turned, in his own mouth, into some shameful, groveling thing.

His friends finally finished laughing and called over to me,

"You're finally back, sis. Where's the hot-and-sour noodle soup Eli told you to grab for us?"

"And my skewers!"

"Ten beef sandwiches, you didn't forget, right? The ones from that place in Northport."

I didn't say anything.

I thought back to the beginning, when I'd believed these friends came by every few days for Elijah's sake,

when I'd tried so hard to win them over, doing whatever they asked.

The truth was, I'd noticed it too: Elijah's amnesia only ever seemed to flare up when he was facing me.

Tamara caught a cold once, and a month later he still remembered to tell her to bundle up.

Whatever the guys asked for, he never once forgot.

So how was it that when I was hospitalized with pneumonia, he couldn't even remember my room number?

I'd asked him about it, and he'd only looked at me with that unbearably guilty look and said,

"Paula, I'm sorry. I'll work hard to get better. Please don't give up on me."

Later, as if to prove to me how often his intermittent amnesia struck, he had an episode in front of his friends too.

One day I was in the kitchen cooking,

and I heard the laughter of his friends drift in from outside.

"Man, what kind of taste does Eli have? How'd he end up with a girlfriend like that?"

"Right? Boring and thin-skinned, wears that sour face all day, like some bitter wife."

"No sense of style either. That dress she wore to the last get-together was a total disaster."

But Elijah acted as if he hadn't heard a thing, just sat there smiling along.

It wasn't until he caught the odd way his friends were looking at him that he asked, slow and lazy, "Hm? What were you all just saying?"

Their mockery and slander of me, he couldn't hold onto that either.

It was a game, of all things.

A game they used to shut me out, to laugh at me.

"Sis, we're talking to you. Did you even hear us?"

A guy in the middle named Ervin Lambert started shouting.

"Where's the beer we asked for? How'd you come back empty-handed?"

3: 3

I lowered my head, numb, and took out my phone.

Elijah had messaged me two hours earlier, a long list of errands to run.

At that moment, I had been lying on the operating table,

feeling a life I had guarded so carefully for three months being pulled out of my body.

I said quietly, "I didn't see it."

Elijah's face darkened at once. "You didn't see it?"

"So you carry a phone around for decoration? Everyone's been sitting here starving, waiting on you, and all you've got is 'I didn't see it'? Is there anything you can actually do right?"

Right on cue, Tamara clutched her chest and looked ready to faint.

Elijah spun to her in a panic. "Tammy, what's wrong?"

Her voice went faint. "It's nothing I probably just haven't eaten in too long. A little low blood sugar"

His face tightened. He shot up, went to the bar counter, and yanked out the gift box tucked at the very bottom.

It was the nougat I'd never let myself touch.

The words came out before I could stop them. "Please don't open that."

"That's a specialty my professor brought me. I've got fruit candy in my bag"

"Who cares about your specialty?" He glared at me, brows drawn tight. "Because you didn't buy any food, Tammy's about to collapse, do you get that? Low blood sugar can kill someone!"

He tore the box open, unwrapped a piece, and carefully held it to Tamara's lips.

I stood where I was, watching him.

Low blood sugar can kill someone?

So he did know low blood sugar could turn deadly.

But back when I was on the fertility drugs, injecting myself, sick to my stomach, days when I couldn't keep anything down,

the night I woke in a cold sweat, shaking so hard from low blood sugar that I sobbed and begged him to get me a piece of candy,

what was he doing then?

His amnesia had struck again.

He'd looked at me half asleep and mumbled, "What did you just say?"

I watched them tear the box apart, laughing, passing my nougat around and eating it.

Tamara looked at me, all wounded innocence. "Don't be angry with me. I really do have low blood sugar. I wasn't trying to take your things on purpose I'll buy you a new box to make up for it."

Elijah patted her head. "Why are you explaining yourself to her? She's got a heart the size of a pinhead."

His friends chimed in. "Right, you're being way too petty. What's a box of candy even worth? And it doesn't taste that good anyway."

"Tammy's not feeling well, and you, the wife of this house, her sister-in-law, don't care one bit?"

"Eli, get your wife under control. That face of hers is bad luck to look at."

Elijah couldn't stand losing face. He cleared his throat.

"All right, all right. She's pregnant, she's in a mood, don't hold it against her."

"Hang tight, guys, I'll take her out to buy food, and when we're back we'll drink properly."

He hauled me toward the door without waiting for an answer.

Pain dragged low in my belly and I stumbled, but he shoved me roughly into the passenger seat anyway.

Elijah wrenched at the wheel, going at me the whole way.

"Paula, are you trying to make me look bad on purpose?"

"Tammy and the others came over to help treat my illness. Would running one errand really kill you?"

"They're my brothers. You married me and you can't even be bothered to host my friends?"

I didn't say a word.

He was really deep into this game.

I knew why he was angry.

Elijah was at the bottom of the pecking order in that circle.

Tamara was its center: good family, beautiful, everyone orbiting around her.

The others all had backgrounds of their own.

Only Elijah had trailed behind them since childhood, used to being the outsider who kept the mood lively.

Underneath it all, he felt small.

And to win their favor, to prove he was somebody too, the only way he could feel like he mattered was by pushing me around.

He was showing them: look, my wife does whatever I say, whatever I tell her. In my house I'm the absolute authority.

"Say something! Are you mute?" When I stayed silent, Elijah shouted, out of patience. "What were you off doing earlier?"

I drew a breath. "I had surgery today."

He frowned. "Surgery? It was just an endoscopy."

"Can you not be so delicate? Tammy's had an endoscopy too and she wasn't wailing about it."

I looked at him. "You remember?"

He froze, realizing he'd let it slip.

But he kept up the front. "Yeah, that's just how my condition works. Anyway, isn't remembering a good thing? It means my illness is heading in the right direction."

I didn't say anything more. I just lowered my head.

The day Tamara had her endoscopy was my birthday.

He'd forgotten it completely and spent a full day and night at her side.

When he came home, he looked at me with those apologetic eyes again and said he couldn't remember.

I followed silently behind him, and we bought the food together.

Downstairs at the building, I reached out without thinking to take the bags from his hand.

Elijah pulled his arm away. "Enough, you're pregnant, don't strain yourself. I'll carry them."

Hearing that, the irony sat bitter in me.

It was probably the only shred of mercy he had left for me, or rather, for that child.

He pushed the door open, and the living room was thick with smoke, beer cans knocked over across the floor.

Ervin spotted us and started up right away.

"Hey, just drinking is boring, we want homemade dumplings!"

Elijah laughed. "No problem, Paula will make them for you."

He turned to me. "Go on. Make a few kinds of filling. Tammy loves shrimp, so make her some of those separately."

I walked into the kitchen without a word.

The anesthesia from the procedure had worn off completely by now. My belly was cramping, and cold sweat kept breaking over me.

I forced myself to keep chopping. My vision went black,

and the blade sliced open my index finger. Blood came pouring out.

4: 4

I froze for a second, watching the blood drip onto the cutting board.

The strange thing was, it didn't hurt at all.

Maybe everything else hurt so much that a little cut like this didn't even register.

I walked out of the kitchen to get a bandage from the bedroom.

But the moment Tamara saw me come out bleeding, she let out a dainty little cry. Ow, that hurts!

Elijah was the first to rush over, cupping her hand anxiously. What is it? Did you get a splinter?

He stared at Tamara's slightly reddened finger, pained, then whipped around and yelled at me,

Paula! When you handed her the chopsticks, couldn't you have rubbed off the splinters first?

Tammy has soft, delicate skin. She's not tough and thick-skinned like you.

Only after he finished shouting did he notice my hand, covered in blood.

He frowned, irritated. How are you so clumsy? Cutting vegetables and you managed to cut your own hand?

Go deal with it, quick. Don't let blood drop into the dumpling filling, or how is everyone supposed to eat?

I looked at him.

His attention had already gone back to Tamara's finger,

and the friends were crowding around her too, one passing her tissues, another blowing on the spot.

I found a bandage, wrapped it on however it went, and turned back into the kitchen.

They ate that meal in high spirits.

After dinner, they sprawled across the couch, and someone tossed out the idea,

Now that we're all full, Eli, how about we help you remember some old times again?

Tamara giggled. Yes, yes! Who goes first?

Ervin shot me a look first, then deliberately raised his voice,

I'll go!

Eli, you don't know this, but the other day I saw a video of your wife online.

Know why you've got amnesia and your wife's still willing to stay married to you? Because she was out messing around with other guys, and you, poor idiot, never had a clue!

They went one after another, the laughter getting louder and louder, all of them turning to look at Elijah in unison.

This game had started out as Elijah and Tamara ganging up on me.

But little by little, they seemed to have discovered a new way to play it.

In the rules of the game, after all, Elijah had amnesia.

So they could use the excuse of curing him to insult and slander me in a joking tone.

If I cried, if I got angry, they'd laugh and call me petty. It was only a joke. The doctor said stimulus therapy like this was good for Elijah.

Back then I never doubted it, because Elijah himself was a doctor.

I would force myself to swallow the humiliation, keep smiling, play dumb.

But now, I didn't want to endure it anymore.

I stood up, my voice calm. I don't feel well, I'm going to bed. You all help him remember.

Seeing me refuse to play along, Ervin slammed the table.

Going to bed? Everyone's having a good time, and you're pulling a long face at us?

Don't think we all have to go easy on you just because you're pregnant. Maybe if you popped one out for each of the guys, that'd be a different story. Hahahahaha.

Elijah felt he'd lost face, and joined in scolding me. :

Paula, did you take the wrong pills today or something? Sit down!

The baby's three months along, past the danger period already. I studied medicine. You think I don't know that?

I looked at this face I had once loved so deeply,

and simply took a surgical consent form out of my bag, laying it flat on the coffee table.

Under everyone's stunned eyes, I looked at Elijah.

The baby is gone.

When I said surgery, I meant a miscarriage. It was the procedure to end the pregnancy.

Elijah, let's get a divorce.