“What’s your name, little girl?”
When I hear the question, I tense. I have no way of knowing if it’s just Lena’s way of chatting with the baby or if she’s so confused she can’t remember her own child’s name. Or that Grace is even hers.
These days, I can’t assume anything. All evidence seems to be pointing in the wrong direction, to the worsening of her condition rather than the stabilizing of it. However, Lena’s occasional bouts of prolonged lucidity—sometimes up to a few hours—are always just enough to allow the thin, fibrous roots of hope to take hold in me.
I know it’s a mistake to let my guard down. To hope. I know the risks, know the consequences of false hope will be devastating, but sometimes, I just can’t seem to help myself. It feels too good to cling to something positive, to think about a future with my wife and child.
It just feels good to hope. Too good.
Turning with Grace in her arms, Lena comes to an abrupt stop when she spots me lounging in the doorway. “Who is this?” she asks, tipping her chin toward the baby she cradles. “Did I forget that we are babysitting for someone?”
“That’s Grace, baby. You had a C-section a few days ago. Isn’t your stomach still sore?”
A faint frown pulls at the skin between Lena’s eyes, and I know she’s performing a self-assessment. I also know the instant it clicks into place. She smiles and tries to play it off. “Of course, I remember that, silly. My memory isn’t getting that bad.” She crosses the room to me and stretches up to kiss my cheek as she passes. “Go back to bed. I’ve got her.”
“I’m already up. Why don’t I keep you company?” I don’t give her time to argue; I just fall in behind her and follow her into the den. I can’t trust that she won’t forget something vital and accidentally hurt herself or Grace.
As I tiredly pursue my wife through the house, my gut clenches with grief. This is all Lena wanted for so long, and now she isn’t even able to really enjoy it. Such a cruel twist of fate.
As quickly as she slips into confusion, however, Lena often slips out of it just as rapidly. It’s as she’s preparing a bottle for Grace that I notice the shift.
“…won’t be around to do it with you later, maybe tomorrow we’ll get out the jar and catch some lightning bugs. I’ll save up all my energy for it so I can carry you around the yard and catch the ones you want me to get. And they can be your nightlight, like they were my nightlight when I was a little girl. And Daddy can film the whole thing so you can watch it when you’re older. You can see how much your momma loved you and how she caught your very first lightning bugs for you. Does that sound like fun?” Lena glances up at me and grins. “In case you didn’t hear that, she said, ‘Hell yeah!’”
I smile, but in my heart is an unbearable ache. It happens more and more often of late. It seems the less I see of the real Lena, the more it hurts when I do see her. Those glimpses become increasingly bittersweet as time wears on. It’s as though I’m losing my soul mate over and over, degree by degree, and it’s tearing me apart.
“You take my breath away,” I confess, my voice thick with emotion. And her answering smile does. For a few seconds, I literally can’t breathe.
I wonder if I’ll ever really be able to breathe again.
When Grace’s bottle is ready, Lena and I head to the sofa. I sit and Lena scoots in beside me, snuggling into the curve of my body and resting her head on my shoulder as she feeds our little girl. She hums softly, craning her neck to look up at me every couple of minutes. It seems that she, too, is aware of how precious these moments are.
Slowly, the humming trails off, and Lena falls silent. Her relaxing hand pulls the nipple of the bottle from between sleeping Grace’s lips. I reach out and take the bottle, letting it fall quietly to the floor so that I can have both hands free to hold my wife.
Winding my arms more tightly around Lena, I hold her to me as snugly as I can without waking her. I’m desperate to keep her close, to hold