Ive started forgetting the simplest things.
At first I couldnt recall whether my son prefers strawberry or peach yoghurt. Then I blanked on which day of the week he has swimming lessons. Later, as I pulled out of a car park, I momentarily forgot which gear I usually start in.
The sudden stall of the engine rattled a panic inside me, and I sat there for several minutes, gripping the steering wheel, terrified to look at the rearview mirror.
That evening I told my wife about it.
Somethings not right with me, I said. Theres always this fog in my head.
She placed her hand on my forehead, then on my cheeka familiar gesture shed been using for ten years.
Youre just exhausted, James. Youre not sleeping enough and youre working too much, she replied.
I wanted to shout, Its not fatigue! Its like taking an eraser and rubbing a person into pieces! but I stayed silent. The fear in her eyes was more frightening than my own.
So I began jotting everything down in a notebook.
Today is Thursday.
Pick up Max at 5:30pm.
Buy a loaf of wholemeal bread, not the rye one. Emily wont eat the rye.
Call Mum on Sunday at noon. Ask about her blood pressure.
Soon my phone became an extension of me. Without it I felt helpless, like a body drifting in familiar surroundings.
One day I truly got lostnot in a forest or an unfamiliar town, but in the neighbourhood where Id lived for seven years. I walked the usual route from the tube station, lost in my thoughts, looked up and didnt recognise the crossroads. The pharmacy I always passed had vanished, replaced by a bright café sign that had never been there before.
I froze, feeling a cold sweat form under my shirt. Strangers walked past as if nothing were amiss, indifferent to a man who seemed out of place. The world suddenly felt alien and uncaring.
I fumbled for my phone, trembled as I opened the map. A blue dot blinked on an unfamiliar street. I typed my home address and followed the mechanical voice, feeling like a child sent out on his first solo errand. I got back three hours later.
Emily placed a cup of tea before me in silence. Her quiet was worse than any outburst. I didnt know how to escape the shame.
Ive booked you with a neurologist, she finally said, not meeting my eyes. Wednesday at four. Ill take the afternoon off and go with you.
I nodded, swallowing a lump. The thought of a hospital, white coats, early signs and agerelated changes filled me with animallike terror. Now Id have to become a patient, spoken of in the third person.
Wednesday morning, while Emily was getting ready in the bathroom, I absentmindedly grabbed her phone to check the weather. My own lay charging on the nightstand. On the screen were open tabs:
Dementia early symptoms in men over 45.
How to support a spouse with memory loss.
Family support groups.
Legal guardianship paperwork.
I threw the phone across the room as if it had burned my hand. I collapsed onto the bed, gasping. It wasnt just a medical diagnosis; it felt like a sentence for our shared life. She no longer saw me as husband, partner, fatherjust a problem, an object of care.
The clinic visit passed in a soundproof bubble. I answered questions, performed tests like repeat these three words: apple, table, coin, and stared at the examiners flashlight. Inside my head only one thought rang out, the one Id read that morning: guardianship.
When we left, dusk was falling. Emily clasped my arm tightly, almost convulsively.
Well, she said, trying to sound upbeat. The doctor says its nothing seriousjust stress. You need more rest. Ill heat up dinner. Youll have an appetite soon enough
I looked at her profile, at her pressed lips, at the faint line of worry near her eye. She was playing the role of the caring wife who believes things will improve, but I saw the fear, the exhaustion, the endless line of days ahead where Id become more childlike and she more of a carer.
She handed me the car keys.
Your turn. Youre better at parking, she said.
It was a simple, brutal test. I turned the key, the engine roared, and then I forgot where the turn signals were. My hand hung uselessly, unable to find the lever. The dashboard buttons stared back at me, no longer forming a coherent picture; they were just scattered letters.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath.
Emily my voice cracked. I cant
In the quiet of the car my words sounded like a verdictfinal and irrevocable. I expected scolding, tears, maybe some comforting words. Instead Emily opened the passenger door, stepped around the vehicle, and gently touched my shoulder.
Move over, she said.
I crawled onto the seat beside her. She slipped into the drivers seat, buckled up, and eased off. She glanced at the traffic light, then, with the back of her hand, brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheekso quickly, almost imperceptibly.
I stared out the side window at the flickering lights of a city that was no longer familiar. I realised I wasnt just losing the way home; I was losing the way to myself. And the woman at the wheelmy wifewas becoming a kindly, tired stranger, driving me somewhere I didnt recognise.
A quiet war had begun: against the illness, against myself, against what was left of our family.
Emily introduced a new system. She hung a large calendar on the fridge with bold headings: Blood Tests, Neurologist, Physio. On the pantry doors she stuck sticky notes listing their contents. She bought a pill organizer and every morning arranged vitamins, nootropics, and a calming tablet in it. She called me hourly, monitoring my movements, activities, medication, even my thoughts.
Our tenyearold son, Max, sensed the tension before he understood its cause. He grew unusually quiet.
One afternoon, while I was helping him with a maths problem, the numbers danced before my eyes, refusing to make sense. Max looked first at me, then at Emily, frightened and asking.
Dads just tired, love, Emily said, sliding into the seat beside us. Let me
Max nodded but stepped back, his gaze now cautious, as if his father had become a fragile, unpredictable object.
Emily and I stopped arguing over dishes or slammed doors. We used to shout, then laugh together an hour later, but now she merely sighed and washed a plate in silence. Her patience felt like a prison wardensperfect and deadly.
I caught myself waiting for her break, for the moment shed scream, When will this end? or collapse from helplessness. That would be honest. It would mean she was still here, in the same boat, even if the boat was halffilled with water. Yet she held fast, and that terrified me more than anything.
One evening, after the fifth time in an hour I asked whether the iron was switched off, Emily finally said, quietly, looking past me:
Im so exhausted, James, that Im scared Ill fall asleep at the wheel driving Max to school.
There was no accusation, just a plain statement of fact. And that simple truth made everything feel even more unbearable.
At some point I decided to record everything about Emily so I wouldnt forget.
Next to buy a grey loaf I wrote notes like:
Emily laughs, throwing her head back, when something truly amuses her.
She has a tiny birthmark shaped like a star on her left collarbone; she hides it.
When shes very tired she wrinkles her nose, even in sleep.
She loves coffee with a pinch of cinnamon.
She adores her old cardigan.
I collected these fragments like a drowning sailor snatching floating planks, fearing that soon I might forget not only the road home but why this house felt like home, why I loved this woman. If I didnt, she would become merely a caretaker.
She saw the notebook one day when Id left it on the kitchen table. She flipped through, read about the laugh, the birthmark, the crinkled nose, and she weptfor the first time in monthsnot from fatigue or despair, but from a sharp, unbearable recognition.
That night she didnt reheat dinner. She took my handnot the clinical grip shed used at the doctors office, but a hesitant, trembling oneand said:
Lets go to that little pizza place we visited after our first date, if you remember what you ordered back then.
I looked at her, and for a fleeting moment, beyond the fear and the pills, a spark flickered. Not a memory, but something else.
Ham and mushrooms, I whispered. And youvegetarian, with pineapple. You said that was exotic.
She squeezed my hand and nodded, unable to find words.
It wasnt a cure. The disease hadnt vanished. Tomorrow I could forget how to tie my shoes. Max could drift away again. Emily could snap.
But at that table, amid the stickysweet sauce and neon lights of a bustling new pizzeria, we were briefly just James and Emily, lost together, then found each other in the quiet between words.
The venue was loud, colourful, far from the cosy diner of our memoryblaring music, neon signs. I fidgeted with a napkin, scanning the menu for familiar names. Ham and mushrooms was there, but under a different title. I felt lost.
Order whatever you want now, Emily murmured, her voice steady, understanding.
I pointed at the first picture that caught my eye. She ordered the vegetarian. When the pizza arrived, I took a bite and stopped.
Its not right, I muttered. Its not the same.
Different taste? she asked.
No. I I cant remember that taste, I said, placing the slice back on the plate. My despair wasnt about the recipe; it was that the sweet, warm memory of our first dateits yeasty scent, its hopeful glowhad slipped away, leaving only a note in my notebook: We were there. It was good.
I pushed the plate aside.
Lets just sit, I suggested. For the first time in months the words felt less like surrender and more like a request from one equal to anotherto simply be together.
Emily reached across the table, laid her hand gently over minenot gripping, just touching.
Nothing changed after that. The fridge calendar stayed, the pill organizer kept filling, but now, before handing me my morning tablets, Emily asked, Did you sleep well? Any head pain? She asked as a lover, not as a nurse.
And I, instead of the usual nod, answered:
Dreams are strangelike being in a glass house, all rooms visible, yet no doors.
She listened, nodded, and in those moments the illness felt less like a hidden enemy and more like a heavy, shared burden they both carried.
Max became our barometer. He noticed when Emily stopped flinching at my slips, when I asked, Max, could you remind me? without any shamejust a request for help. He once brought home a drawing of the three of us holding hands under a bright sun, captioned, My family. Were strong. I taped it above the medication chart.
The disease, however, never truly left. It would recede, offering false hope, then strike where least expected. One morning I awoke and didnt recognise Emily lying beside me. Panic rose in my throat; I clutched the wall.
She opened her eyes, saw my startled gaze, and understood instantly. Her heart sank, yet panic didnt followonly a weary, endless sorrow.
James, she said softly, staying still so as not to frighten me further. Its me. Emily, your wife.
I breathed shallowly, words failing.
You have a note about the starshaped birthmark, she continued, her voice calm as if speaking to a frightened animal. Do you want me to show it?
I nodded slowly. She gently lifted her shirt, revealed the tiny mark on her collarbone. I glanced at it, then at the notebook on the bedside table, comparing. The fog in my mind began to lift, replaced by shame and a helpless grief that made her turn away.
Sorry, I whispered hoarsely. Im sorry, I
Dont, she cut in, still not looking at me. Just just lie down. Its all right.
She rose, made coffee, her hands trembling. It wasnt all right. It was a new level of lossforgetting the way home, forgetting her face, forgetting the love of my life. Their fragile truce, their tender evenings, were not remission; they were merely a pause in a long, descending spiral.
When she returned with two mugs, I was perched on the edge of the bed, scribbling furiously.
What are you writing? she asked, setting the coffee down.
I showed her the messy scrawl:
Morning. Woke up. Scared. Saw the star on her collarbone. Recognised. Its Emily. My beloved. Remember at any cost.
I didnt write wife; I wrote beloved.
Emily took a sip of the scorching coffee, trying to clear the lump in her throat. Tears were useless. Anger, useless.
All that remained were my desperate notes and her silent presence beside me. She settled closer, her shoulder resting against mine.
The coffee will cool, she said simply.
I, still pale and shaking, nodded and lifted my mug. My fingers clasped hers, searching for warmth, for a tether to reality.
Many mornings like this lay aheadcountless small and large losses. Perhaps the notebook will cease to help. Perhaps Max will grow up recalling a father who gradually faded into the surrounding world. Perhaps Emily will not bear this weight.
But in that sunrise spilling over the crooked lines of my notebook, we were together. Not in a past that slipped away, nor in a future that frightened us, but in the presentfragile, cracked, imperfect. The only thing we still had.
