Until We Are Gone

by Gia Riley

  “They shocked your heart back into sinus rhythm,” she explains. “And we won’t know about babies this soon. I’m sorry. I’ll have your doctor explain all of this to you as soon as he’s available. I know it’s a lot to take in.”

  The crushing pains.

  The lightning bolt.

  It all makes sense now.

  I wasn’t dreaming. I was dead.

  And then they brought me back.

  But I don’t know what to do with the thought of not being able to get pregnant. It’s all too much to process.

  The nurse sits Cash down in a chair, and I stare at him. The important person in my life is a stranger.

  “I love you, Meadow,” he says with so much conviction that I’m certain he must mean it.

  A loving wife would say it back. But all I can give him right now is a bland, “Thank you.”

  It’s not even close to being enough.

  Cash bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut.

  Brittany stands in between us with a sad expression. “Do you need anything while we wait for the doctor?”

  There’s nobody else I remember, so I tell her, “Just my parents.” I glance out the window, and the buildings are tall and gray. It’s oddly comforting. “We’re in the city, right? They should be only a couple of blocks away.”

  Cash lets out a strangled groan and then stands up again. Nurse Brittany encourages him to sit back down, but he doesn’t listen.

  “Your mom’s dead, Meadow. She’s buried next to your grandmother. And your dad moved to London six months ago. You really don’t remember?”

  Cash is out of breath, and he has little beads of sweat lining his forehead. I concentrate on watching them absorb into his eyebrows just so I don’t have to focus on what he just blurted out.

  Being in this room is suffocating us both, and I start to cry.

  A forgotten marriage is one thing but my parents? How could I not remember my own mother’s funeral? I don’t even know what killed her. And why would my dad move all the way to London? He never traveled. The only thing he cared about was work and Mom.

  “Mom’s really gone?”

  Brittany looks as troubled as I feel and hurries out of the room. I’m sure she wants to get a doctor in here before I uncover more of a life I’ve forgotten.

  “I don’t remember. Why don’t I know that?” I sob.

  My nose is running into my mouth, and my head’s throbbing from crying. But I keep talking, spewing what I do have knowledge of.

  I’m not sure what I’m trying to prove, but I tell Cash, “I remember Grandma. She was in the country. I loved her house and all those summers I spent there.”

  His eyes widen, and he takes a step closer to me. After glancing at Brittany, who just returned with a syringe and a clipboard, he says, “She remembers,” with so much excitement.

  But remembering does nothing to erase the pain of never seeing my mom again, and I wonder if this is how it will be if my memories don’t come back—me reliving every horrible truth twice.

  Brittany gives me some medication that I don’t bother to ask about. If it makes me go back to sleep, then I want it. Because looking into Cash’s eyes is too much. He knows everything. And I can’t remember what I did last week, before the accident.

  The doctor finally arrives, and Cash starts asking him questions right away.

  I overhear something about my blood pressure being elevated and typical behavior following a head injury.

  None of it matters.

  Unless there’s a magic pill to give me my life back, I think I’m better off staying quiet. My memories are jumbled, large chunks of my life are completely missing, and I can’t tell if the things I do remember are fact or fiction.

  All I know is that I’m scared.

  I want my life back.

  The one where my parents are alive, and I’m tucked away inside Grandma’s bathtub.

  one

  CASH

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  As I lie in bed, dozing in and out of consciousness, all I can picture is my boss’s face. Earlier today, he rattled off a bunch of things he wanted done by the end of the day. I knew they’d take me a lot longer than the four hours I had left on the clock.

  “We’ll cover the overtime,” he told me.

  But I knew I wouldn’t stay late. My hours were nine to five, and they couldn’t go a minute over. It’s not that I didn’t want to do the job. I loved working in law.

  It’s always been my dream to climb the corporate ladder, and I’ve come far in a short amount of time, mostly because that’s how I cope. I drown myself in work, a reminder that I have an actual purpose.

  While I’m sitting behind a desk, I’m more than just a slave to loss and addiction. I’m a man who provides. A man with goals and aspirations that don’t revolve around an accident and memory loss.

  Every dollar earned goes toward bills, and whatever’s left, I put it in our dream house fund. It’s probably stupid to set the money aside for a place near the ocean that my wife doesn’t even want anymore, but I’m not ready to give up on us.

  No matter how bad Meadow gets, I hold on tight to the image of the woman I fell in love with, praying that she’ll get some of her memories back.

  Night after night, I dream about the day my wife chooses to love me back—not because she feels like she has to, but because she wants to.

  These days, she barely tolerates my presence, and that hurts almost as much as the accident itself. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to win someone’s heart twice, especially when it was so easy the first time.

  From the moment we met, our personalities clicked, and I wondered how I’d ever survived a day without Meadow. But, now, she’s as much a stranger to me as I am to her, and this dance I’m doing, tiptoeing around her so that I don’t set her off, isn’t working. We’re both exhausted, and I’ve come so close to giving up on everything.

  Trying to force the future into becoming the past is getting us nowhere. There’s no getting back the days we’ve lost. And the only way we’ll make progress is with acceptance and a fresh start.

  God sent my wife back to me, like I’d asked. He did what I’d wanted. He just didn’t send her back whole, and I need to come to terms with that.

  Meadow’s parents and her grandmother are the only ones she remembers. It’s ironic really that she can recall all those empty memories and forget about the fulfilling ones with me.

  Now, her mother’s dead, and her father’s an ocean away. Not even the accident could bring them closer. Meadow still longs for time and attention. She’s clinging to the idea of a father. But their relationship just doesn’t exist.

  Mr. Capshaw has no plans to move back to the States after he retires and sells the business.

  He spent the better part of forty years building the family real estate fortune from the ground up, so I guess it’s easier for him to toss some cash her way than to cross an ocean.

  In reality, I think it’s too painful for him to set foot on American soil without his wife by his side. Her passing changed him, and it wasn’t for the better. He spiraled after the burial, and then he took off, going international with his company as an excuse to get away.

  Meadow doesn’t need him or his money. Even if he called, I wouldn’t let her talk to him anyway.

  The situation is dire, but you can’t tell a man what he doesn’t want to hear. Mr. Capshaw can’t handle watching his flesh and blood fade into nothingness. And, as far as he’s concerned, ignoring Meadow’s drinking problem means it doesn’t exist at all. His reputation stays intact.

  I used to have the same mentality, too, but I’ve moved way beyond forgetting. Meadow’s drinking is more than an addiction; it’s her whole life.

  I tried like hell to ignore the truth for the better part of six months. But I can’t do that anymore.

  It’s real, and it’s not going away. That’s why I keep her car keys locked in a safe. And, when I’m home, my keys get locked aw
ay, too. I change the combination weekly because the thought of her figuring it out sends me into a full-blown panic attack.

  What if she got behind the wheel and killed someone?

  My wife isn’t a criminal. Before the accident, she was kind and caring. She’d have done anything for anyone. But she can’t stay sober, and when she’s drunk, Meadow’s capable of some disastrous things. Sometimes, I don’t even recognize the woman she’s become.

  Her previously perfectly styled chocolate-brown hair is now a tangled, stringy mess. Sometimes, after she showers, she doesn’t bother to brush it.

  When I ask her why, she tells me, “Nobody ever sees me. And, even if they did, I wouldn’t know who they were anyway.”

  The day she told me that, I realized how much her voice had changed, too. Her sweet innocence is now raspy, like her vocal cords were singed in a fire. When she’s in one of her rages, it’s like dealing with a monster.

  God, I hate comparing her to something that awful, but Meadow’s become so eerily unpredictable, there’ve been moments I’ve not only feared for her, but I’ve also feared her.

  My wife is an alcoholic, dependent on the bottle to get her through the day.

  At first, she was content with a glass of wine with dinner. We were having normal conversations, and she wanted to hear everything I had to say about life before the accident. Those conversations kept me hopeful that her memory would magically click back into place.

  I wouldn’t leave out a single detail, making sure I went as far as describing sunsets and clothing, just so she had as much information as possible.

  For a couple of weeks, it seemed to help. She was feeling good about our life together, and I thought she might even have feelings for me again.

  I can’t tell you the exact moment her mood changed, but it had everything to do with a visit to the neighbors. A package was delivered to our house by mistake, and Meadow offered to walk it next door to the rightful owner. Something as silly as that short walk gave me so much hope.

  Standing in front of the living room window, I watched her with pride and satisfaction. Though nervous, she was putting herself out there again. But that neighbor said something Meadow didn’t remember, and as quickly as she had walked to the house, she ran back ten times faster.

  The same thing happened again at the grocery store and once more at the hair salon. Each time she couldn’t remember, she’d shut down a little more. Those casual glasses of wine turned into entire bottles. She stopped wanting to hear my stories, and she didn’t want to leave the house. We were barely speaking, except for her yelling and screaming about being out of alcohol.

  I shouldn’t have bought her the vodka, but if I didn’t, she’d have found another way, and that scared me more.

  Before I knew it, I was cutting my workdays short and babysitting my wife.

  Meadow is suffocating, so she’s made herself as numb as humanly possible.

  As badly as I’ve wanted to cure her, there’s nothing I can do to make her accept the person she is. It’s taken me a long time to come to the realization that she has to do this for herself, by herself.

  Unless Meadow wants to start over, she won’t stop drinking. She won’t let the pain return, and because of that, I think she’s lost all hope of shedding the amnesia.

  The specialists said it would take time to accept the trauma, that she wouldn’t get there overnight. They even warned me that she might never fully come to terms with the loss.

  I was devastated, but I believed that, with proper therapy and care, she’d at least make some progress. It wouldn’t be this way forever.

  That goes to show you what a fool I was. Meadow hasn’t improved at all. She’s gotten more depressed and increasingly agitated.

  At times, you could say she’s neurotic, spending hours paging through photo albums of days and nights that have vanished from existence. She studies every detail, no matter how small, hoping a freckle or a cloud in the sky will be the missing link.

  Just like my dinner stories, she used to force me to sit with her and explain each picture. I’d tell her who was in them and what they meant to her. Names, places, locations, events—it was all spelled out to her as vividly as I could. I wanted her to have the best chance at being whole again.

  I stopped talking her through the pages when that became as much of an obsession as the drinking. It was too hard, watching her spend hours racking her brain and coming up empty.

  “Why won’t you help me?” she’d ask as tears spilled down her cheeks. “Why don’t you want me to get better?”

  I didn’t know how she could say those things. I’d devoted my life to her recovery. I was the one who stayed by her bedside and held her hand. I said prayer after prayer, praying to anyone who would listen.

  Those prayers might have woken her up, but nothing else was working. My efforts weren’t enough for Meadow.

  I took a long, hard look in the mirror and asked myself some difficult questions. I even made an appointment with her therapist. There has to be a way out of this hell.

  There is.

  But I’m not ready for it. I feel like, if I agree, I’ll be admitting that I’ve failed my wife. If I send her away, she’ll think I’ve given up on her.

  That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ll never give up on Meadow, but I’m done watching her kill herself. The drinking needs to stop, and there is no way she’s strong enough to do it on her own, not that she wants to.

  Last week, she explained to me why she drank until she blacked out. She said the euphoria before she passed out would remind her of when she’d almost died.

  She believes that, if she tries hard enough, she’ll be transported back to the helicopter, and she might remember the awful night the truck slammed into her car. Once that happens, she’ll try to go further back in time until she eventually gets all of her memories back.

  Meadow actually believes that drinking herself to death will cure her. Because that’s what happened in that helicopter; she died. For a few brief moments, I lost her. If she thinks I’d ever support her blackout theory, she’s crazy.

  Even if her methods work, there is no guarantee that she will stop drinking. Her alcoholism is the only thing she’s had control over for six months. It’s been a best friend when she’s felt all alone. And the vodka never makes her do things she doesn’t want to do. It only encourages her to be braver and stronger.

  That bravery will put her six feet under.

  Every time the bottle touches her lips, the undertaker scoops another shovel of dirt from the ground. We’re already three or four feet deep, and I feel like the closer we get to six, the faster the shovel moves.

  I’m losing her.

  But I have a plan.

  There’s no way I’m buying a headstone and burying her next to her mother.

  two

  CASH

  “Where is it, Cash?” Meadow screams as she tears apart the dining room.

  I have no idea what she thinks she’s lost. All of her things are in the bedroom or the living room, and I know better than to touch them. Even doing the wash is risky because she needs everything in its place. And, when she’s drunk, she has zero patience if she can’t find what she’s looking for.

  “Where’s what?” I ask her.

  Instead of explaining what’s gotten her so worked up, she charges across the living room. I grab her hands before a fist connects with my chest.

  “They’re gone,” she says in a panic. “What’d you do with my pictures?”

  I knew I shouldn’t have touched them. But, every now and then, usually as I’m cleaning up the mess from the night before, I catch myself glancing at the pages of the photo albums, too. I don’t spend hours staring like Meadow does, but even the slightest glance has the capacity to suck me back into that world—the world I miss more than anything.

  The two people in the photos are insanely happy. In nearly every shot, one of us is always laughing, and if we aren’t, then it’s a tranquil
moment full of peace.

  We’re not those people anymore. I haven’t been content since long before the accident.

  Our reality is ugly—the exact opposite of what life used to be. So much so that most of the pictures are hard to look at.

  Meadow uses them as a tool or a crutch, seeing nothing more than a man and a woman who went on a vacation. She notices the ocean, sand, palm trees, and sunshine. But she doesn’t care about the dimples on her face from smiling so hard or the sweat dripping off my brow after I carried her all the way up two flights of stairs.

  Traditions were important to me, and I wanted to carry Meadow across the bungalow threshold. Newlyweds were supposed to do those kinds of things, and I was determined to spoil my bride every chance I had. I never wanted her to forget how thankful I was that she’d chosen me.

  She smiled so big, saying how silly I was being because it wasn’t our actual house. I told her I’d do it again once we got home, and then we both screamed when I almost stepped on a lizard as it scurried inside our room.

  I can still remember every conversation we had that week, all the sarcastic comments, and the laughter. There was so much laughter.

  With the way things have been lately, it’s easy to forget what that kind of peacefulness feels like—the contentment of the person lying next to you at night, knowing they’ll be there when you wake up, ready to make new memories.

  Maybe you’ll venture someplace new or go on a date to a fancy restaurant. It doesn’t matter what happens, just that you’re doing it together. That’s what I miss most—the camaraderie, my ride or die, my best friend.

  “The albums are on the coffee table where they always are,” I tell her.

  She shakes her head so hard, the wet strands of her hair slap her in the face. At least she showered on her own, without me begging.

  “I need the one with the white bow on the front. That one’s my favorite.”

  As calmly as possible, I grab the photo album she’s been looking for off of the kitchen counter, slipping a picture of us back into the plastic slot. The one with the white bow is my favorite, too. Full of our honeymoon pictures, the book matches the wedding album.