relief of having one kiss confirm the enormity of what was developing between them. That one kiss acted as a confirmation of their attraction, and it made his need to be near her grow exponentially deeper. He suddenly felt that he didn't want to be without her ever again.
"Well, now you've done it," she said.
"Remind me again what it is I've done."
"You've gone and kissed me."
"I suppose I did."
"What would my fiancé say?"
"As far as I'm concerned, you don't have a fiancé."
"That would be news to him."
"But it wouldn't be news to you."
"No, it wouldn't be," she said, turning suddenly serious.
"I don't think you should marry him. I don't want you to marry him."
"Good, 'cause I don't plan to."
"I want to be the one who's with you."
"I want you to be the one I'm with."
"Good. I want to spend more time with you, more days like this, days where we can learn each other. But I don't want to be dishonest about it."
"You think we're being dishonest?"
"If he thinks you're engaged, then yes, I think we are."
"He definitely does."
"Who else thinks you're engaged?"
"My parent do. His parents do. And about forty or fifty other people who were at my parents' house last night when he made the announcement."
"And you're sure you never affirmed his announcement?"
"No, I was stunned. I mean, I knew he had asked for my father's consent that we be married months ago, but I hadn't the vaguest idea that he thought things had progressed to that point already. We hadn't discussed it at all. So, when he stopped the room, declared he had an announcement to make, and started to say that we were going to be married, I was absolutely mortified. The whole scene just spun out in slow motion. For appearance's sake, I tried my best to paint a smile on my face. But, as quickly as I could, I bullied my way through a sea of congratulatory stares and smiles, and escaped. I snuck away to the lake, and then you showed up and confused things even more."
"Are you confused?"
"Not about marrying Henry," she said. "But I am confused about you."
"How so?"
"The certainty of you confuses me, I guess. Henry and I have known each other since we were kids. Our relationship was mostly arranged. We were pushed together early on by our parents and our social position. But it never felt real or rich in any emotional way. Our being together was a simple formality, and it in no way felt emotionally binding. But when you came over to me last night it was like… I don't know. I can't—"
"It was like waking up."
"Yes. Suddenly, I'd known you for less than five minutes and I could've told you the most personal things. I could've revealed private thoughts that I couldn't have said to Henry in a million years. There's a truth between us, an emotional richness that I had begun to question existed at all."
"It does," he said, grabbing her hand.
She clutched his hand with both her hands, and they let the moment submerge them for a long, quiet minute as they floated down the lake.
"I wished for you, you know, last night," she says, breaking the long quiet.
"What do you mean?"
"I looked up at that giant moon and those stars that were so remarkably clear, and I asked, literally, in my head, I asked God or the moon or the stars, whatever might be listening, to bring you to me. A few seconds later, I heard your voice and suddenly you were standing right next to me like you had materialized from the moonlight."
"John?" Maddie asks, still bleary-eyed from sleep. "You been up long?"
"Not long, no," he lies. He would hate for her to know he's stayed in bed for nearly two hours just to keep from disturbing her.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine. You?"
"Oh, just fine," she says, sitting up and rising from bed. "You sleep well?"
"I feel rested," he says, maneuvering his tired body to sit on the edge of the bed.
She walks around the bed to sit beside him.
"What were you thinking about just now?" she asks.
"When?"
"Before I woke you."
"I wasn't sleeping."
"Right, but you were off somewhere. Where'd you go?"
"I was on a boat with you… Sixty years ago."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I woke up this morning with the image of you from the night we met burned in my mind. You were standing by the lake, and that incredible moon was shining down on you. It's not the first time I've went back to that night, but this time I felt as though I was reliving the whole thing."
"How much do you remember?"
"I don't know. My mind tells me that I remember it all, but memory—my memory in particular—is a tricky business. Still, it was a seminal moment—my seeing you that night—and most of what I remembered felt accurate. It still feels like those were the first days of my life."
"I know what you mean."
"Do you?"
"I think so, yes."
"But I honestly don't remember who I was before you. I mean, there are fragmented memories I have of my childhood, still images of Mom and Dad from the past, but they might as well be echoes from a photo album somewhere. There's no life behind the images, no animation. It's almost like the past before I met you never happened."
Maddie sits silently, and patiently listens to him. She's learned to enjoy his lucid moments, to cherish them, absorb what she can of him before he fades away.
"And, even in those old fragments of memory, I hardly recognize myself as myself. It's truly as if I only became who I am after I met you."
"That's a sweet thing to say, John."
"I suppose it is, but I wasn't saying it to be sweet. I really mean it."
"I don't doubt it," she says and gets up to go to the bathroom.
He follows her. "Do you remember if there were fireworks that first night?"
"The night we met?"
"Yeah."
"You mean metaphorically?"
"No, literally."
"Sure there were. It was the fourth of July."
"Huh, I thought I just imagined that. It seemed too good to be true."
"It was. It all was. We were lucky. We've always been lucky."
As he brushes his teeth, he thinks about their luck for a minute. They had always been lucky. But their luck seemed to have run out when some invisible hand started stealing his memories. It was as if they had been too greedy with their good luck, as if they had used it all up.
Now, it seems they are paying old debts.
John walks out on the porch with a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. He's bundled up for a usual February morning, but it's actually slightly warmer than usual—well above freezing.
He stands over the stairs of the porch and stares out at the lake down the hill. The lake's current moves slowly, its cold, thick water crawls deliberately down its path. He leans against the post by the stairs, thinks again about how lucky they've been over the years. Even their house was purchased for a steal, especially for a lakeside property. Of course, it helped that Maddie's dad was the real estate broker. And the house wasn't without its faults. It needed lots of work, but they were young and prepared to be patient with the place. And they were patient. They fixed it up a little at a time, and over time it became more and more a home—their home.
John's morning routine used to consist of waking up and walking their dog, Rufus, down by the lake. And before Rufus, it was Lester he'd take for a walk. He and Maddie have had five dogs since they've been married, and his mornings had always started with those morning walks. Until this past year. Maddie asked him several months ago—as fall was drifting toward winter—to stop the walks. He knew she was right to worry. The path he usually walked on is rocky, hilly, and makes for some uncertain footing. Throw in some rain, or worse, some ice, and it could set the scene for a terrible fall. He's remained pretty surefooted over t
he years, but the fears of a fall have accumulated as he's gotten older.
Ultimately, the weather was the reason they both gave for why he should stop the morning walks. But he knows that she had been watching him getting worse, noticing that his mind was slipping. It was easy to see that she was just as worried that he might just lose his way one morning in the middle of a walk and wander off. It's not as if the thought hadn't occurred to him as well.
He turns back toward their picture window and sees Rufus staring out at him. Rufus really misses those morning strolls. So does John. He misses breathing that moist, cool morning air, starting off groggy and waking up in the wilderness. The winter walks weren't always something he woke up looking forward to, but he was always happy he'd gone.
Rufus probably wonders why the walks stopped. Maybe the poor dog even thinks he did something wrong, that they stopped walking as a punishment for something he did.
Even John wonders sometimes what, if anything, he did to be punished with the indignities of time, the perplexities of losing times gone by.
He takes a long sip of hot coffee. Then he takes a deep breath of the February air. These tiny things—drinking a hot cup of coffee, breathing the morning air—he no longer takes for granted. He's even come to look forward to this new morning ritual of coming out on the porch with his coffee, trying to collect all the pieces of himself that were scattered the night before.
The coffee used to help bring some of those pieces back.
Nothing seems to help anymore.
The door behind him opens. He doesn't turn. Maddie's been coming out to join him more often lately. She's learned to take advantage of the limited amount of time she has with him on these days.
"It's not too bad this morning," she says, walking up to him. She clutches his arm