Love Letters to Us

“Have we met before?”, the question lingers in the air frozen between us.

The hospital monitors beep at your side and I smile,

“Perhaps, perhaps not” my aged lips murmur at the painful question, I keep my smile playful just how you like it and lean in; your heart rate jumps just slightly.

“But maybe we can get to know each other sometime?” It's a question, one I have whispered to you many times. The first time I had offered, you had blushed bright red. Now it returns again, the delight creeps up past your earlobes, past the diamond earrings I gifted you years ago. You always kept them on, even as the illness waged wars with your brain. Muscle memory perhaps?

It had been you who had once been the bold one, dashing around the park besides me going from bar to bar on the jungle gym, my mother leaned into your father. They had not told anyone about their arrangement, not my father, nor your mother. It had simply looked like a simple play date between two elementary school children. At its core it was, but at its core it was also adultery. My church pastor had said the words once to the communion just before I could see over the pews. At the time I had not known what it was, I just knew it was bad.

So the day my father screamed at my mother, he called her an adultress, a cheater. When he saw me he spat words at me, the man who had raised me asked if I was his.

Mother swore it, she hadn't lied. Two months into divorce proceedings DNA results declared us a 99.99% chance of us being father and daughter. He had refused to look at me regardless, he said I looked far too much like my foolish mother.

Your father faced a similar issue, but the marriage had already been unstable. It'd once been something you'd shown off, but no doubt the teacher noticed the boy with tired eyes,

“Married in Vegas!” You declared proudly at show and tell. I leaned forward in my desk beside many kids to view the photo you'd eagerly shown off many times before. An Elvis impersonator stood between your parents, your mother dressed in scraps of fabric, and your father dressed down far too much that I would have never considered him to be the groom. They stood in front of the Las Vegas sign, lit up with vivid neons.

It was that year that my father pulled me from school and moved me halfway across the US landing down in a small town in Illinois called Sandwich. It didn't have much, a Walgreens, a few hair salons, a small town grocery store, a few gas stations, a few bars, a bank, and a couple restaurants. We lived there for ten years and I eventually forgot about you. You stayed there in California growing into a handsome young man with your mother.

When we met up again I had traveled back to the town of our childhood. I was visiting for the summer. My father had grown softer after several years, by the time I was seventeen he began to treat me as his daughter again.

Of course, I had always been his daughter, whether he liked it or not. But, he had changed; grown smoother by the break. Though by that point we had inevitably drifted apart, so as a possible means of encouragement he sent me to California as a way of repair. Maybe he wanted me to see the town as he had, but I was completely indifferent to his vision. I felt a bit sad seeing that place, some part of me never came back from that jungle gym.

I had thought that, then I encountered you. It was the last day before I returned home, I was watching the sunset as waves washed against the balls of my feet. I had forgotten you, I hated to admit it then. I still do now, but I guess we're even on that front.

You came up to me to my back, your smile was familiar in the way honey is to a bee. Perhaps it was that which caught me, the need to keep that smile close from that moment on.

You asked me on a date right then and there. I accepted.

On our date I was the first one to ask,

“Have we met before?”

You shrugged,

“Maybe, but I'm sure I'd remember such a lovely woman” I had blushed at the line, I had never thought of myself with such a foreign ideation but hearing it from you ignited a warmth in my chest.

You were always such a flirt.

You told me pieces of your past and we reconnected the moments together. I flew back to Illinois with your number logged on my phone, and a few months later you followed.

You were adamant that we were meant for each other, you called it true love.

I had never known true love, not until I realized that we'd been together for three years that valentines day.

You got down on one knee, and pulled out a velvet fabric covered box. Inside it was an abalone and pearl ring laid side to side and wrapped around with silver metal.

From then on our years merged forward together.

We had animals, two cats we'd found on the street on our honeymoon, the first; an orange cat with the amount of brain cells as a hollow rubber ball. You named her Ember. The second, a grey and white shirt haired tuxedo. Our handsome little fur ball. I named him Ash. He had the brains of the two, you had joked that he mirrored me when you saw him climb shelf to shelf to reach their treats.

You still ask about them and for your wife whenever I visit, before asking if we've met.

It still hurts, hearing the question.

Because, even though my hands have become less nimble and my joints ache and rage; I still bring the foods you love. Your eyes still light up, and there’s a memory that plays somewhere in there. But it doesn’t bring you back to me like it used to, you don’t whisper my name as the food passes your tongue anymore. You stopped recognizing me six months ago. At first it was brief, before recognition pooled through your eyes and you whispered my name. Then, it came from the foods I brought; the stew you adored, the bread they stopped making; so I started making it until I mastered it.

The first time I had cooked for you since your illness took my face you cried and cried. You cried enough tears to fill the ocean tenfold, and enough to build galaxies and palaces of salt. Your tears were diamonds in a mountain of dirt. I would’ve paid the whole planet and galaxy just to hear you say my name to me, to say it to me with the same warmth; and take me back to the beach. Ask me the question that wounds me now;

“Have we met before?”