Remembered Too Late

“My husband, Roger Harvey, was a renowned top-tier lawyer in the industry, but he could never remember anything outside of his cases. He never remembered my birthday or our wedding anniversary. Every night he stood at the bedroom door and asked politely yet distantly, "Is this the one?" He could not even remember my name or what I looked like. To make him "remember" me, I hung our wedding photo on the wall with a label underneath. "Anniversary: May 20." I put a nameplate on the bedroom door that read "Bedroom." I even labeled everything in the house with sticky notes that explained in detail how to use each item and its background. I thought it was a side effect of his high-pressure job, so I never complained. That changed the day a multi-car pileup sent both me and his childhood friend, Sylvie Gordon, into the emergency room at the same time. He rushed frantically to Sylvie's bedside and shouted in a clear, urgent voice, "She has tachycardia. She caught a cold last month but no fever." The nurse handling the rescue grabbed him and asked, "Sir, your wife is also seriously injured. Does she have any medical history or allergies?" He turned his head, looked at me covered in blood, and shook his head blankly. "I don't remember." In that moment I finally understood. He was not forgetful. His memory was astonishingly sharp. He simply reserved that precise, precious memory for someone else. Everything about me he had never cared to keep in his heart. This was a dramatic tug-of-war between love and betrayal. It was a heart-wrenching journey of self-redemption. Yet when I decided to leave, he was suddenly filled with panic...”