Away From Shore
“…so, I took your hand, whispered in your ear, and felt your heartbeat race with mine.”
Holding Dee’s left hand within his, John leaned forward close to her face to brush her wayward hair from her eyes with his right hand. The white room was cool and quiet, except for the medical equipment, and the lights were dimmed to avoid hurting her eyes. The curtains drawn against the warm summer night and the door to the room closed to the distractions of rushed movements and sounds, the space they occupied felt like a failing safe harbor.
She slipped in and out of confused bearings while he held a steady course, waves of churning memories flourishing with her waking trepidation. Ripples between them, he was unshaken; guarding and guiding her through the worst of the passage, he anticipated the recurring turmoil rising to upend their remaining shared moments. Alone together, the end was waiting for them, and he fought the bitter taste of the present with the rejuvenation of their past.
Eyes drifting open through the weight of leaden veils, she focused on the ceiling above her, the ceiling’s flat surface a mirror of the white expanse blanketing her mind. Following a crack from the edge of a light fixture leading towards the door, she sensed the movement beside her and turned her head to follow him as he leaned back into his chair.
Her mind aimless and unanchored, unbounded blinking tried to navigate the confusion, chasing the missing threads born of his words. “You whispered…what did you whisper?”
John smiled. “You don’t remember?”
Dee’s face was an empty canvas. “I remember…pieces. Like looking through a book and not seeing the words but remembering the plot.”
“So, what’s our plot?”
“Our plot?” Her face scrunched. “We’re not a book.”
“We’re all books. Some you read, some you live; some with sharp ideas, others with thoughtful dialogue; some with vibrant descriptions that feed the senses; and others that pain your heart with every turn of the page. But the writing always gives us purpose no matter the end.”
Dee’s voice quivered, her left hand shivering within his. “And at the end? What if…what if I’m not who I was when I started?”
“We never are.”
Her face tensed and her eyes closed. “You know that’s not what I meant. Lying here with tubes and wires connected to machines, I don’t know who I am half the time. And the other half is spent listening in silence as the world dances around me. I’m lost or forgotten, and being me isn’t the same as knowing I’m me.”
His right hand joined his left, lightly pumping her cradled hand as he asked, “Is that what you’re afraid of?”
Dee turned her head away, her opening eyes avoiding him. “I can’t remember most things, anymore. My mind, like the rest of my body, is gone, and the pieces that are left don’t fit into anything. I… I don’t know where I came from, or who I was. So, I don’t know…”
Her words dangling over a precipitous edge, his voice was cautious. “You don’t know, what?”
“I don’t know if you see me like I used to be. Whatever that was.”
A warm smile caressed his face. “You’re always who you were. Whether you remember it or not, I do. And no matter how far you feel from where you were, I’m still here. And I always will be.”
“Till the end?”
“Yes. Whatever that is.”
Her head turning back to him, she studied his eyes. “Sometimes, I wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
Pausing to sense his interest, she turned her head to look up at the ceiling, her eyes glossing over before closing. Pain lining the wrinkles of her face, thinking was harder than speaking as ideas fought to find their escape. “You see a person across the room, or across the street, and think: Who are they? What are they? Is that person like me? Are they that different that it would have made a difference if they were me?”
“But only you are you.”
Her head nodded. “Yes, but if it was them and not me…with you, I mean. Would it have been different? Different for you and different for me?”
“Why would you—”
Her eyes rushed open, still avoiding his. “We are who we are, but how would it have been different if it wasn’t us? I mean, you and me, together. If you were with someone else, you wouldn’t be here with me, now, waiting. You could be out with them instead, doing whatever you wanted to.”
The unfathomable shaking his head, he felt the world quake under his feet as his lips quivered. “But I don’t want to be out there. Not with someone else, and not by myself. I’m here. And I will always be here.”
Dee jerked her left hand free from his embrace. “That shouldn’t be your burden. It’s mine. You deserve more than that.”
Startled, his head dipped. “No, I deserve what I have gotten, and what I have gotten is all I ever wanted. You and me. That’s all.”
Frustration taking hold, her face flushed as her voice cried, “I want to remember! Why is it so hard to remember!?”
His head rising, he reached out to pull her hand back to him. “Shhh.” Disorienting waves tossing her into rough waters, her emotions fought the drowning surges, while his hold on her hand became her lifeline. “Do you think it would matter? How does that change who you are, or who I am, or who we are together?”
“Were.”
“What?”
“Who we were together. Without my memories, it doesn’t mean anything.”
Hardening his face, his voice was steel. “It does to me.”
Her restlessness growing, time was only as tangible as the space between, and the space kept slipping. “But if I don’t remember—”
“Do you think I would be here, or do you think anyone would be here, like this, if it didn’t mean anything? People talk about their life as if their perspective is everything, but it isn’t. We live and breathe together. Whether you remember it or not, doesn’t make it any less true. And me being here is all the proof you will ever need to believe it.”
His fingers stroked her hand within his, a pacifying touch to the subtle tremors that ebbed and flowed with her frustrations. While she watched the steady movement on her hand, he watched the lines of stress on her face smooth and disappear. A quiet moment allowing calm to resurface, it was a small reprieve from the repeated instances of loss and regret. The physical pain was less now thanks to the drugs, but the side effects of confusion and weakening memory took a greater toll than he knew the moments of lucidity could address.
Breaking the silence, she struggled to find anchors. “Is it only you?”
“Only?”
“I mean…I don’t remember kids. Did we have kids?”
He smiled. “We had each other.”
“And that was enough for us?”
“How much is enough? How much money, how many things, how many friends and family to make us whole?”
An appreciative smile touched her face. “That all sounds very nice, but you didn’t answer the question. Me laying here with you watching over me, so little of anything makes sense. And I know—we both know—what is coming. So, was it enough?”
Resolute and without pause, he answered, “Yes.”
Doubt in her voice, she tilted her head at him; her eyes searching for inconsistencies her mind fought to create. “That’s it?”
Smiling, he shrugged. “I can’t put it any clearer than what it is. And before you ask: no, I’m not just saying it to appease you. Yes, we both know where we are and what’s coming. Nobody wants to think about it, but it’s there nonetheless. And no matter how it ends, it took us time to get here. And how we got here is important. Even if you don’t remember now, I know you have remembered, and I know you will remember. Everything comes with time whether it’s easy or not, but time is just time, and however much either of us have left, we’ll spend it together.”
“It’s still a burden; too much for you. A mess you don’t deserve.”
His head shook hard. “There is no mess.”
“This isn’t a mess?”
“This is life, that’s all. And life is difficult sometimes. We deal with it like we always have. You keep looking for some way out of where we are, even though here is where we are. What if it was me laying there and not you? Our positions changed, but the situation the same?”
She turned away from him. “That’s a trick question.”
“How is it? What’s the difference?”
Anger touching her voice, she said, “The difference is, I can’t remember…anything! Words are hard enough, and the missing memories just make it worse. Whether it was you or me here, since I can’t remember, what’s the point of the question? It’s all lost.” Her voice cracking, the lines of her face hardened. “I keep thinking…”
“What?”
Her voice waning, she shook her head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
Squeezing her hand, he pleaded, “Tell me.”
Her breathing quiet and controlled, almost nonexistent, she said, “I keep thinking, it’s like there is no time. I don’t mean like we’re timeless or something. But I sit here, sometimes not even knowing where I am, and I watch this small pocket of space around me. People moving around looking like fluffy blobs in their uniforms—light blue and white clouds passing by as I float in my four-walled universe. Sometimes, there’s light from the window when the curtains are opened, and I can see a sky different from the ceiling that tells me…there’s still more beyond what my confused mind tells me. And then the curtains close and I’m locked inside again…locked inside my mind with only you to help me find a way back. I remember…” Her eyes squeezed shut and her left hand clenched his like a vise. Something bubbling to the top, she pushed hard with all of her focus and took a deep breath. “I remember the time you rented that boat and we were stuck on that little lake.”
Lucidity flowing back to her once again, he smiled. “Remind me.”
The fifty-year-old memory breached her cloudy mind; her face loosening with the soothing of the waves against the rocking little rowboat. “We…you lost the oars in the water…and we were stuck in that little boat for several scary minutes…floating further away from the shore. The man who rented us the boat waved, and you waved back and smiled, yelling, ‘We’re OK.’ I remember…I remember the look on your face as you turned away from the shore and found me again. You could tell I was nervous and worried as we just drifted further and further away. I asked… ‘Will we be OK?’ And you just smiled away any danger with a, ‘Yes,’ took my hand, and leaned in towards me.”
She turned back to him. Smiling without knowing, her mind fresh and alive, squeezing his hand tight with a resilience he had been waiting for. “You don’t give up, do you?”
Hearing her voice returning to him, he said, “There’s nothing to give up.”
She flashed a knowing smile. “And you whispered in my ear…”
“And I whispered in your ear…” Rising out of his chair, he held her left hand in his, and moved his mouth close to her left ear. Brushing aside her hair with his right hand, his breath was warm and sent tingles down her spine.
Her eyes closed as tears flowed down her cheeks. A sudden flush of red dancing across her face, the air left her body in a soothing release of all her pain.
Wetting his lips, he whispered “…because I will love you forever, and stop as soon as never.”
