Sweet Banana Pie, Never Enough

My husband, Joel, has never been the same since the accident; he got nasty, he got mean. Apparently, the doctors had said it was memory loss, but I know he didn’t forget. His old friends, whom he would hang out with weekly, were the first people Joel cut off. He stopped talking to his friends, then his–our family–. He stopped talking to his parents, then me. It was like he was brainwashed. After years of attempted treatment of the so-called memory loss, we gave up trying to fix him. So you can only imagine my shock when he shows back up at my–our home, carrying banana pie, my favorite thing ever, and hands it to me with a note that says, ‘I love you, my wife, Diane’ with a signed heart with his name under it.

I remember the smell of banana pie from our early years together—how Joel used to burn the crust every single time, and how we’d laugh about it while scraping the edges off with forks. He’d always say, “It’s not about perfection, it’s about sweetness in the middle.” Back then, the sweetness was ours. When he came back with that first pie, I could almost smell the same comfort, but it felt hollow, like a memory mimicking itself.

He did this every day for months, but the banana pie was never enough. I wanted my husband back, and I was tired of picking up crumbs. The next time he showed up with banana pie, I declined, throwing the note down. He shriveled back, like an animal when you yell at them.

“I don’t need banana pie,” I announce, “I want my husband back!” He just turns off my doorstep and walks away, down the street, I watch him walk and walk–not once turning back–, until he gets to the end of the block and turns. Only then do I go back inside and close my front door.

That night, the silence seemed more oppressive than usual. I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the empty counter where the pie used to sit, and realized how dependent I’d become on that small ritual—those hushed moments of confusion, anger, and reluctant gratitude. The air emitted faintly of bananas, and I hated it for reminding me of him. I washed the counter three times before bed, trying to erase the scent, but it clung stubbornly to my skin.

He didn’t ever bring me banana pie again. He didn’t show up to my place or try to talk to me until months later. I had cried every night, missing my banana pie. He knocked on my door, three times, then two. Knock knock knock–knock knock. I had memorized this pattern throughout our marriage. I practically sprinted to open it. Was he back? Did he finally remember me? Did he bring banana pie?

He stood there, and held a bouquet of blue lilies, my favorite flower. He held it out to me hesitantly, as if he were still scared from the last time. My anger had much cooled over since then. I grabbed the flowers slowly and softly. I smile.

The lilies looked unreal, like the kind you see in a dream—too vivid, too perfect. I noticed dirt under his fingernails, as if he had picked them himself. That small detail broke me a little; Joel, the man who used to order everything online, had gone out somewhere and touched the earth for me.

“Thank you, Joel, my love. Do you want to come inside?” I ask, my voice quiet and scratchy because of the crying. I haven’t heard his voice in years.  

“Yes, Diane,” he says. His voice sounds clear. Did he stop smoking? I nearly cried–happy tears, of course. My heart reopens, hope flooding me, rising like water in a tub. I smile much more genuinely as he follows me inside.  

The first thing he did was look around the house like he was seeing it for the first time. His gaze rested on the photos lining the hallway—our wedding day, our first home, the trip to the lake. He touched one frame gently, tracing the glass with his finger. “We were happy then,” he said, almost to himself. I didn’t know whether to nod or to cry.

We talk about everything. How he stopped talking to us for months, years. Rehab, he had told me. Quit smoking. My Joel? The Joel I knew would never stop smoking, not in a hundred years. He tells me he felt different after the accident. He didn’t know how to describe how it felt. But now, he was ready to come back. Come back to his friends–who had probably all moved on from him by now–, his family, and me. Come back to me? I was so happy.

He talked about the accident in pieces, fragmented memories that seemed to have sharp edges. “I remember the sound first,” he said softly, “metal folding in on itself. Then nothing, just a long stretch of white. I thought I was gone, but when I woke up, everything was wrong. The light, your voice, even the way food tasted. It wasn’t amnesia, Diane. It was like I’d been… replaced.” His words hung in the air, unsettling but honest.

I told him about the years after—the birthdays he missed, the nights I slept beside the indention of his body on the mattress, the way I’d left the porch light on for too long. He listened, tears streaking his face, and whispered, “I’m sorry,” over and over until it felt like a chant.

We spent that night just talking. I made tea; he didn’t touch his. The steam rose amid us like a veil. I wanted to reach across the table and hold his hand, but I was afraid he might vanish, like the mist.

In the days that followed, Joel came by more often. He fixed the squeaky door hinge, cleaned the gutters, even repainted the porch railings. It was as if he was trying to rebuild something invisible between us. But sometimes, I’d catch him staring at nothing for long stretches, his eyes unfocused, as though he were seeing something I couldn’t.

I tried not to let the unease grow. I told myself healing looked different for everyone. Yet, one evening, I found him in the backyard digging a small hole beneath the lilac bush. “Just planting,” he said, but his hands were empty.

It brings us to now. “Babe!” I call from upstairs before he opens the front door. “Don’t forget banana pie!”

He laughs—a sound that feels half-familiar, half-new—and I hear the door open and close. I stand at the top of the stairs, listening to his footsteps fade into the quiet street. Sometimes I wonder if the Joel who walks away is the same Joel who comes back. I wonder if love can survive being split between two versions of the same person.

When I think back on everything, I realize it’s not the pie or the flowers that mattered. It was the ritual—the act of him trying, and me choosing to believe he still could. Maybe that’s what love becomes when memory falters: a collection of gestures that hold meaning simply because we decide they do.

I sit at the kitchen table, the evening light pouring through the curtains, and wait for the sound of his knock—three times, then two. If it comes, I’ll open the door again. If it doesn’t, I’ll still leave a slice of banana pie on the counter, just in case.