Prelude
See him, his face, his presence. But he is not the same.
He recognizes…you think.
A fluttering of hope.
Allegro con espressione
The universe shifted in the night along with your memories.
In your daughter’s room, a missing shoe peeks from under her violet bed near a heap of books. The cover of one is familiar—you read it as a child, you’ve read it to your children—but it’s spelled wrong. A voice calls for mom. “Be right there,” you say, gripping the book as your stomach drops; there is an A in Berenstain. “I thought it was an E…”
You say the name of fictional bears aloud for reassurance of the pronunciation. Same as your mother pronounced the name when she read it. Question if your genetics are going to copy hers. Wonder if it is a misprint.
Lento con amore
See your husband; he is not your husband anymore. The man sitting across from you on the subway is your husband. Recognize him, though you’ve never seen him before. The train car propels along the track, beating in mechanical rhythm. He looks up from his book. Catch his gaze. The rattle and hum of the car vibrates with a metallic squeal as your hand warms the steel post you cling to. This stranger—your husband, you feel deep in your bones—sees you, his expression gentle. His affable smile couples with a squint of his dark eyes to indicate a, “How do I know you?”
Wonder the same.
When the universe shifts, recall develops hazy memories. Memories etched on a page that just won’t turn, mostly disappearing altogether.
His eyes return to his book, and you stare out the window with an ache in your belly.
Adagio pianissimo
The man occupying your house is your current husband, yes. He is kind and you have a good life together and two children. The children are different.
At the breakfast table, your children sit; they get ready for school. The toast pops and while you scrape peanut butter over the slices, note that the name of the peanut butter brand printed on the jar is shortened. Bring the children’s plates to the table while they stare at their phones and grunt thank you. One used to have red hair, but now she’s blonde. The dark-haired girl is new.
The radio plays the NPR morning news. The world, or you, feels restless. The hairs on your neck and the chill running up the backs of your knees scream that something is off-balance.
Sit in the school parking lot in your SUV. The engine idles. The photos in your phone hold your current memories. Swipe through them. The warmth of seeing the girls playing in the snow a few years earlier, proud of their snowman with the lopsided carrot nose, is a respite. A photo of your current husband swipes into view. Even though the man you’re married to today works hard and provides a good life, you feel alone. He doesn’t see you the way you wish he did. Strain. Pull. Yank the page back on the memories. He doesn’t see you the way James did. Yes, that was his name. Your real husband. The man from the subway. Or was that the name on his book? It feels right. The name settles into a void in your heart. But he isn’t your husband now and there is no such thing as real. James doesn’t exist anymore in this universe, in that capacity. He was torn from you in the shift. Don’t think of another explanation. Don’t think of how your mother lost herself in the end.
Ask your now husband if he remembers the stories with the bears and how their name is spelled. He says it’s with an A not an E; he doesn’t remember before the shift. You doubt yourself. Wish you could tell him, that you could be understood. The grief slithers out of your gut with twisting fingers towards your heart. Guilt intertwines as you think about the stranger, about James, on the subway, his glance, a beckoning sense of recognition; the pull that he wanted to know you, to really know you.
Grave con dolore
Drop your children off at school and walk through the park. It is March and still cold, but you don’t mind. The sun peeks. Find an empty bench and read for a while. You’ll see why. Trust your intuition. Stop reading and watch. Out over the browned, wintry grass, people pass by: joggers leave clouds of breath, dog walkers are pulled in multiple directions, toddlers waddle along the paths, clutching a guardian’s hand. Ask the question that’s occurred to you. Wonder if all of these people—the joggers, the dog walkers, the children—wonder if they know the universe shifted, if they, too, have woken up in a house of familiar strangers.
On your wrist, a bracelet hangs while its charms press against your skin inside the glove. You pull it free; the charms dangle, each holding a memory. Your daughters and your husband give you these charms as tiny monuments. The starfish is the time you went on beach holiday last summer. The coffee cup is from your birthday. The miniature violin is from your husband, the father of your children, who gave it to you after the orchestra recital when you played first chair. Each one hangs. Run your fingertip across them. They are testaments of the life you know. But it’s different from the one you hazily recall.
See the man again. The man from the subway you’re sure is called James. He walks towards you on the gravel path. His dark hair hides under a knit beanie, his broad shoulders fit perfectly in his boiled wool peacoat and scarf. He sees you and pauses near the bench. Close your book and say hello.
“Do I know you?” he asks.
Consider telling the truth, that he knows you better than anyone in the world and that his skin smells of cloves and vanilla, that you love the scar on the left side of his belly even though he hates it—you force away a trigger of doubt. But you shake your head. “I don’t think so.”
“The subway,” he says, wagging his finger. “You were on the subway.”
“Yes, I remember you.” The words are thick in your throat.
His eyes are the same as your blurred memories coming into focus. Dark eyes that shimmer with depth. The lines of a smile you’ve brushed your fingers over so many times before. The winding grief coils around your bones. “I could swear we’ve met.”
He looks at you and you hope he remembers.
Embarrassed, you add, “It happens. I don’t know why, though.”
“Maybe spirits recognize each other,” he says.
“That’s a beautiful thought,” you say while your heart gasps in the choking twists in your throat. No one can tell anything’s wrong except you. “Are you James?”
“That’s my middle name.” He reaches a hand out and you take it. The soft of his palm brushes your fingertips and the electricity zips from your heart, up your arm, out your hand, and by the time it reaches his chest, he recognizes…something, you think. The shimmer in his eyes dims.
“I know you…” he says. Pull your hand back and hide it in a warm pocket. “We used to play music. By the pond behind your parents’ house.”
Meet his gaze. His eyes widen and you coil inside, afraid he will think you’re insane.
He straightens and his face softens as he says, “It’s crazy. But it feels true. I don’t remember, but I feel you’re right.”
“I play the violin now.” Your throat aches, you want him to remember, you will him to recall.
His syllables are slow, suspended. He doesn’t look away. “You’re…”
“Lyra.”
He stares at you, his eyes searching, then kneels in the wet grass at your feet and clutches the edge of the bench, his hands to your left and your right. Your hands tremble as he stares until the shock releases. “Lyra…” he whispers. “We were…married?”
A sense of ease, of feeling known, lightens your chest. “I think so.”
You can tell him. Go on. Tell each other everything about yourselves in this shifted universe. He kneels in front of you, grinning like he’s found a treasure, like you’re certain he did when you were children. Tell him you’re a musician. He still cooks. He was engaged, but she left him and broke his heart. Fury rattles the backs of your eyes knowing someone treated him that way—him, your perfect love. Jealous that he loved another and yet guilty of the same; you tell him you are married with children. The doubt subsides as you hear his side of your story.
“Are you happy?” he asks.
“I think so.” You rub the bracelet’s charms.
“I want you to be.”
“I feel alone, knowing all of this.”
“You’re never alone,” he smiles, and you motion for him to sit beside you.
Tell him the strange little things you’ve noticed that are different than you remember: the bear stories, the peanut butter brand, and New Zealand being in the southeast of Australia instead of northeast. “What happened?” you ask. “Why have you been taken from me?”
He looks away. “Reality shifted again.”
The hazy fog pulls back a moment. A series of scenes swell, like a dream—the nights with him. Laughing, his fingers teasing your skin, his arms lifting you, his kiss… “Can it be fixed?”
But you know the answer.
He shakes his head.
The grief winds through your blood, telling the truth. “I’ve lost you.”
He touches a hand to your chin and you look at him through blurred vision. He wipes a tear from your cheek. “I’ll always be yours,” he says. “In this life and the next.”
Dare to stroke the lines of his smile. “No one sees me like you do.”
His hand reaches for yours. Close your eyes. Delight in that warmth. His knuckles and the dips in his palms feel like a lyric you haven’t heard in years.
“Leave him for me,” he whispers.
Your heart leaps, but the faces of your children smiling in the snow remind you of the present. They don’t know any difference. You won’t compose their suffering. “I…I don’t think so.”
Andante con amore
For the rest of the afternoon, you walk along the meandering paths through the park, summoning times together. Laugh as you recall the time you fixed the car, somehow crossing the wires so the horn honked when it started. Test each other’s memories with what your house looked like. He says, “The painting above the fireplace was…I can almost see it.”
“The lion and the lamb. You don’t remember?”
“I loved that painting. Always made me feel at ease,” he says.
You feel the memory more than see it.
“‘And the lion shall lie down with the lamb,’” James quotes. “What color was the shower curtain?”
The striped yellow and white, gauzy pattern emerges in your mind. “You tell me.”
“That blue and white one you picked out when we first found the house.”
You smile, forgiving him. “Yellow and white.”
“Right, yellow and white. It all feels so cloudy.” He takes your hand in his and you savor this sense of intimacy. Guilt purges it quickly, because your husband, who you also remember building a life with in this reality, is sitting at work and your children are at school, trusting you to be home later.
“Yes, the yellow and white one. I remember.” There is a glimmer in his eye that causes you doubt, a hint of a cruelty playing at the corners of his mouth. Push it aside. He doesn’t remember it all yet. You’re seeing your own fears projected. You aren’t becoming untethered from reality. It will come back if you tell him more.
You talk of books you love, you speak of music, and you sing for him, the song from your wedding. The birds pause their airs for yours; the naked tree boughs move in tempo. The fog lifts on your shared memories, and while you are with him, an aching peace surrounds you. It won’t last. Fragile as the fleeting notes of a song.
He holds your face in his hands and asks you once more to be with him this time. The temptation dangles, but you shake your head. “I just can’t,” you say. “It wouldn’t be right.”
A glimmer of frustration in his eyes. “Meet me here in two weeks?”
You agree and kiss his cheek and he walks away. The awareness that you won’t have him in this life buckles inside your chest.
Largo con dolore
That night, after the girls have gone to bed and your husband is reading a book on the couch, draw a hot bath and cry into the rising steam. The death of you and James, the death of your perfect union, of your pure happiness, squeezes out from the inner depths of your soul. The grief is a serpent that twists and crushes as the water of tears, steam, and bath become one. Reality can only be set right, not reversed to how it was. The sobs overtake and you crumple into the water, leaning your head against the cold tub.
Crescendo
Each day, you scan the news for signs of another shift, some proof to validate your aching loneliness. Each day, you doubt yourself. Surely, this is all in your head. But why did James remember? Curious, you type into the search bar, the lion and the lamb passage from the bible and are told it never existed. Now it is a wolf, a hellhound with the gentle sheep, and that changes the entire meaning. Except, when you click Images, the paintings are still lions and lambs.
Interlude
Two weeks pass. It’s raining, yet the park still teems with joggers and dogs. Along the gravel path, a child-sized mitten lies lonely and soaked. You stand beside the wet, peeling bench under a black umbrella. The water drip, drip, drips. Check the time. James is late and you must leave soon. Worry that some grave accident has befallen him, or that he didn’t remember—or worse, that he isn’t real. That notion chafes panic over you. You wait as long as possible. The greys, greens, and browns of the landscape change in the light and weather, a chorus of color. “James,” you whisper. “Where are you?”
The alert on your phone reminds you school is almost out. The kids will return soon and dinner will need to be made. On the walk home, convince yourself James is real. The refrain of doubts echo in your mind. It may be best to persuade yourself that this was all a strange and sinister story that happened with a stranger. The confusion wraps its confines around you because the feeling of being seen alleviated your loneliness. It couldn’t be true. But what about the painting over the fireplace? You cry in the kitchen while chopping carrots and potatoes, wondering if you’ve been made a fool.
Accelerando con moto
Disconnect the grief like switchboard wires when the kids get home. Tears swell at the thought of never seeing James again, of never feeling so recognized, so visible, so understood by another. It gnaws, this dull pain, climbing with chokeholds up your gut, through your heart, and into your throat.
Coda
“It’s the way it is. Nothing to be done to change it,” you tell yourself. The grief disconnects again and the chokes release. You’ll need to take time to sit with the grief, acknowledge it like a timid lamb looking for reassurance—something that is more scared of you than you are of it—but that, too, will need to be scheduled. Anger rises; that’s how the sadness exposes itself. Punch pillows on your couch because it’s the only thing you can control right now. The shift stole James from you and it should have stolen your memories, but you remember. And you always will.
Da Capo al Coda
You hit your alarm and stuff your feet into cold slippers. you slip out of bed without waking the deep sleeper beside you. Pushing the door open to your children’s room, you find an office. Your stomach drops. In the hallway, there are photographs on the wall. There are no children in them. The man in the photos with you, the one where you are holding up a fishing pole, is smiling and you know he’s your husband and you’ve been married for years. You wonder if you had one of those lifelike dreams where you had children. He wakes and kisses you goodbye as you both leave the house for work.
You park your car in your usual spot outside the music building at the university. As you walk the hall to your office, a man walks towards you and you stare at each other for a moment—the awkward space of pushing face, name, and context into a single form.
When the universe shifts, memories develop hazy recall. Echoes of times past that can’t quite be heard, mostly disappearing altogether.
But some memories stay.
You swallow. “You’re James.”
He seems surprised. “Do I know you?”
