And most days, he doesn’t remember my name.
I’m simply the friendly woman
who visits every morning.
He likes me.
The nurses say he talks about me when I’m not there.
Sometimes he smiles when I enter.
Sometimes he flirts.
Sometimes he asks whether I’m married.
I always answer yes.
“Lucky fellow,” he’ll say.
And I smile.
“I think so.”
But there’s one thing he has never stopped doing.
He wears his wedding ring.
Every single day.
Sometimes the nurses need to check the skin beneath it.
But Mark becomes upset if someone tries to remove it.
He presses his hand against his chest.
Shakes his head.
“No. That’s mine.”
He cannot explain why.
He doesn’t know who gave it to him.
He doesn’t remember standing on that dock and asking me to put it on his finger.
But somehow, he knows he wants to keep it.
I often remember what he said in the video.
Maybe my mind won’t remember. But perhaps
my hand will.
Some afternoons, I sit beside him while sunlight pours through his window.
The ducks move slowly across the pond.
Mark turns his ring around his finger.
Sometimes he opens and closes the little hinge.
Click.
Click.
Click.
He watches it with quiet fascination.
Last month, something happened that I’ll never forget.
He carefully removed the ring.
Held it toward the window.
And examined the tiny letters engraved inside.
Then he began reading aloud.
Slowly.
One word at a time.
“Even if I forget…”
He paused.
“…she chose me.”
I held my breath.
He looked up at me.
For a moment, his eyes seemed unusually clear.
Then he asked,
“Who’s she?”
I moved my chair closer.
Took his hand.
And smiled.
“Well, sweetheart, it’s a rather long story.”
He tilted his head.
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to hear it?”
He smiled.
That same smile I’d fallen
in love with more than thirty years earlier.
“I’ve got time.”
So I began.
—
I told him about a young construction worker who walked into a hardware store covered in drywall dust.
He couldn’t remember the name of the hinge he needed.
So he drew a terrible picture.
And the girl behind the counter laughed.
Mark chuckled.
“Sounds like a terrible artist.”
“He was.”
I told him how the young man kept returning to the store.
