“The brain is a mystery,” I say, looking down into my coffee.
“Yours is a beautiful mystery.”
I feel another blush coming on. “This coffee is good . . . What is it?”
“Peet’s Gaia Organic.” He adds kindling, lighting a match to the crumpled paper. “But you stopped drinking coffee about two years ago.”
“Because we were trying to . . .?”
“Yeah. Start a family. You were off caffeine.” He takes a cloth from the firewood rack next to the woodstove, wipes the soot off his hands. He puts the cloth back on the rack.
“And now?” I grip the mug so tightly I’m afraid the handle might break. I wish I could remember wanting a family with him, but even sleeping with him would be like picking a random man off the street. A handsome, caring man, but a stranger.
“We’ll take our time. We can talk about it when you’re ready.”
“What if I’m never ready? What if I’m a different person now?”
“You’re not different. You just don’t remember who you really are.”
I peer into the dark liquid in my cup, but I see no answers there. “Thank you for filling me in.”
“I hope the pictures help, too.”
“More than anything.”
He sits beside me and reaches for one of the photo albums on the shelf beneath the coffee table. He tried showing me images on my computer, but if I stare at the screen too long my brain turns to mush. Dizziness slams into me, and nausea—the aftereffects of a head injury. Jacob assures me that these symptoms will subside over time. My inability to concentrate makes me want to throw the computer across the room.
I’ve gone through the printed photographs a few times since we arrived, dwelling on my childhood with wistful nostalgia, on images of my parents. My father, slightly chubby when he was young, sported a handlebar mustache, which he later shaved off. My mother was delicate-boned and perpetually cold, even in California. We fit squarely into the middle class in our modest stucco home on the Riviera in Santa Barbara. My mother taught high school math; my father mechanical engineering at the university. In an instant, their lives ended on that stormy night on Highway One, when their car skidded off the cliff and plunged into a ravine. They were heading north to Mendocino for their anniversary.
My parents are gone, but I remember them. I remember my childhood, my teen years. But when I flip to the pictures of Jacob and me, the ground slips away beneath me. I remember nothing. I do know the smell of him, a mixture of subtle, spicy cologne and his own indefinable scent. When he’s close to me, my heart beats faster. My nerve endings come to life when he places his hand on my arm to steady me. I love the way soft wrinkles form next to his eyes when he smiles. His habits echo with familiarity. He cracks his knuckles when he’s preparing to take on a task, like cooking a meal or going for a jog. He clears his throat when he’s thinking hard or trying to decide what to say. If I ask him to relate a particularly difficult emotional memory, he squints off into the distance before answering.
Here we are in Pike Place Market, perusing a produce aisle. A stranger must’ve taken the picture. We first met in front of the famous flying-fish counter. He caught a frozen salmon as it sailed through the air, almost hitting me in the face. Jacob to the rescue.
Even the pictures of Linny and me feel distant, since they were taken in these last foggy years. In one photo, she wades into the water at Alki Beach in West Seattle, releasing a giant Pacific octopus into the Puget Sound. I must’ve been the photographer cheering her on.
At least she keeps me sane by email. Her encouraging words are a breath of fresh air. You’ll be okay. You’ll rediscover your love for Jacob. Trust me.
I flip through an album of wedding pictures and mementos. I don’t recognize the guests in their formal attire, only Linny and Jacob. I taped a silver key onto a page, and I wrote the sentence below: You hold the key to my heart. Jacob did the same on the opposite page. I pressed dried white rose petals into the album, printed a wedding invitation, and included a delicate lace coaster from the reception dinner. Our wedding cake was a three-tiered affair with ocean-blue icing, covered in vanilla sea stars.
In another album labeled “Our Adventures,” Jacob printed photographs of us on hikes, dives, and outings in the city. On the second-to-last page, I stop at a photograph of Jacob and another man. I don’t remember seeing this one. But I must have. I’ve flipped through this album before. The two men are standing on a bluff trail with the sea stretching out behind them. Jacob’s in rain gear, but the other man is in a thick black turtleneck, hiking pants, and lace-up boots, as if the weather doesn’t bother him.
“Who’s that?” I say.