Chapter 37 - When Vincent Forgot
The first sign was a name.
Vincent called Hope “Claire.”
Everyone laughed.
He laughed too.
Then he forgot where he had parked.
Then a foundation meeting disappeared from his memory.
Then he stood in the pantry one afternoon holding a coffee mug and could not remember why he had gone there.
Claire noticed.
She said nothing for three weeks.
Finally, one morning, she found him sitting beside the Peony Room.
His hands were shaking.
“You know.”
Claire sat beside him.
“Yes.”
He looked terrified.
Not corporate terrified.
Not physical danger.
Something deeper.
“My mother had dementia.”
Claire knew.
He had rarely spoken about it.
“She started forgetting at seventy-two.”
Vincent was sixty-eight.
Claire took his hand.
“We don’t know anything yet.”
He laughed bitterly.
“I know enough.”
The neurologist ran tests.
Mild cognitive impairment.
Possibly early Alzheimer’s.
Possibly stable.
Possibly progressive.
No certainty.
Vincent hated uncertainty.
For once, there was nothing he could control.
In the car afterward, he stared through the windshield.
“I don’t want you to go through this.”
Claire understood.
“Through what?”
“Watching me disappear.”
Her eyes filled.
“You are not disappearing today.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
She turned toward him.
“You don’t get to decide what I can endure.”
He looked at her.
“Sound familiar?”
Despite everything, he smiled.
Over the next year, symptoms progressed slowly.
Vincent began writing notes.
Not corporate notes.
Personal ones.
CLAIRE LIKES COFFEE WITH CINNAMON.
HOPE CALLS SUNDAY NIGHT.
SILAS JR. IS ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS.
ANGEL IS OUR FIRST CHILD.
CLAIRE IS MY WIFE.
I LOVE HER.
One morning, Claire found the last note stuck to the bathroom mirror.
She stood there crying.
Vincent entered.
“What happened?”
She pointed.
He read it.
Then looked embarrassed.
“I didn’t want to forget.”
Claire touched his face.
“You won’t forget everything at once.”
“What if I forget you?”
Her breath caught.
He looked terrified.
“What if I become a stranger to you?”
Claire remembered another stranger.
The young billionaire in a hospital hallway who had looked at his bleeding wife and checked his watch.
She had survived losing him once.
This was different.
This time, he was not choosing distance.
Disease was taking pieces.
She kissed his forehead.
“Then I’ll introduce myself.”
He broke.
She held him.
As the years passed, Vincent lost some things.
Passwords.
Dates.
Names of executives.
Then names of old friends.
But strangely, certain memories remained sharp.
Yellow peonies.
The Brooklyn apartment.
The hospital.
The sea-glass ring.
Claire.
One winter evening, he looked at her across the dinner table.
“You’re beautiful.”
Claire smiled.
“You’ve known me forty-six years.”
“Have I?”
Her heart stopped.
Vincent frowned.
Then suddenly smiled.
“I’m joking.”
She threw a napkin at him.
“You jerk.”
He laughed.
For five wonderful seconds, he was entirely himself.
Then he became confused about the year.
Claire guided him gently.
No anger.
No shame.
Just truth.
Later, Hope asked privately, “How do you do this?”
Claire looked toward Vincent, who was asleep beside the fire.
“You stay.”
Hope cried.
“That simple?”
“No.”
May you like
Claire smiled sadly.
“That complicated.”
