Always together

1. She – Friday morning

The bathroom smells of menthol and stale damp. In the corner of the mirror there’s a haze that never lifts, no matter how often I clean it.

I can already hear him shuffling on his socks, the rhythm of someone who knows his house but has lost his reason for being there.

“Els?” he calls.

My hand hovers for a moment above the toothbrush rack. My name is Mara. It feels as if my identity is dissolving now he no longer knows my name. Els being the name of his first wife bothers me less.

“Els?” again, a little louder now, as if volume might bridge the gap.

I walk into the bedroom. He is sitting on the edge of the bed, pajama pants crooked, shirt half tucked in, as if he got stuck halfway through getting dressed. His hair is flattened on one side. In his hands he is holding my cardigan, the blue one with the worn elbows.

“Your cardigan was here,” he says, relieved, as if he’s found something he nearly lost. “Els, you remember?”

I don’t correct him.

Not because I don’t dare. Not because I don’t feel like it. Because I’ve been seeing for weeks now what happens when I do correct him. He squeezes his eyes shut, as if trying to push away the sun. He gets angry at himself, or at me, or at the day. Suddenly there is a man in the room I cannot help, because he is pushing against a wall I can’t see.

I take the cardigan and put it on. Because it is familiar to him.

“Thank you,” I say. I lighten my voice. Not sweet. Not syrupy. Just… right.

In the kitchen I make coffee. Not the way I drink it, strong and black. I set the machine to mild, add milk to the reservoir. He likes milk in his coffee. Or: he used to. I do it anyway.

When he comes in, he exhales as if he’s come home.

“Ah,” he says. “See? You know.”

I slide his cup toward him. It’s the one with the crack, the one he always takes because he thinks it belongs to him. Maybe it does.

He drinks and nods. His face relaxes. The crease between his eyebrows fades as if I’ve smoothed it away with my fingers.

I watch his hands around the cup. Large hands, once steady. Now they tremble ever so slightly, only visible if you really look. I look. I try too hard.

He looks up and smiles at me as if I haven’t betrayed him.

“Els,” he says, with a warmth that makes me nauseous, “for a moment I thought I’d lost you.”

I smile back. My jaw muscles ache from pretending nothing is breaking.

2. He – Friday morning

The air feels clear, as if someone has tidied up the room without him noticing. There is coffee. Not the bitter stuff from yesterday he couldn’t keep down without gagging. This is coffee that makes sense. Coffee belonging to a woman who knows what he needs.

Els stands at the counter. Her shoulders are narrow under her cardigan. He recognizes the cardigan. The blue one. She wore it when she told him her mother was ill. That was… then? Or another conversation? It doesn’t matter. The cardigan is real. So she is real.

“Did you sleep well?” she asks.

He nods. He didn’t really sleep. He dreamed of a station without signs, where all the trains made the same sound. But he doesn’t need to say it. Today he doesn’t have to fight for words slipping away.

He sits down. She sets a plate in front of him. Bread. Butter already spread. That’s good. It saves choices. Choices are slippery, they slide away. This stays put.

He takes a bite and feels something like relief. Everything fits now.

Yesterday she was… different. Yesterday she said things like, “No, I’m Mara,” and then looked at him as if he’d broken something. He didn’t want to break anything. He only wanted to name the woman who belongs with him. The name fitting his mouth.

Today she doesn’t say anything difficult.

He looks at her hands. She isn’t wearing rings today. Or is she? He’s lost the trail. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because she stays with him and doesn’t push.

“You did your hair differently,” he says.

She touches her temples briefly. “Yes,” she says. “I thought: easy today.”

Easy.

He understands the word. He understands it with his whole body. Easy is a day that doesn’t talk back. Easy is a room where things are where you expect them to be. Easy is someone who doesn’t make you feel how far you’ve already gone.

He eats and notices he doesn’t once have to search for the beginning of a sentence. The sentences just come. He tells her something about the neighbor who swapped the trash bins yesterday. Els laughs. The sound makes him happy, because it’s exactly how it should be.

3. She – Visit from the nurse

At eleven, Lotte arrives. The community nurse. She always smells of hand sanitizer and winter. She sets her bag on the same chair, pulls gloves from a box as if it’s a ritual meant to protect the room from what’s about to happen.

“Good morning, Mara,” she says clearly, to me.

For one second I feel relief, because someone else says it. Because I’m not the only one who still knows reality.

He turns his head. His face tightens, as if a door slams shut at the last moment.

“Mara?” he repeats.

Lotte looks at him, at me, back at him. She wants to be professional. She wants to be correct. She wants to help him by fastening him to facts.

“Mara is your wife,” she says calmly. “Mara.”

I see his fingers curl around the armrest. His breathing quickens. The crease returns, that deep cut between his eyebrows I had smoothed over this morning with coffee and tone.

I interrupt.

Not with a big gesture. Not with drama. With something small: I set a glass of water down, exactly between Lotte and him. A transparent table edge.

“Lotte,” I say kindly, “could you check the medication list for a moment? I think the dosage of the evening pill doesn’t match the new prescription.”

I hand her a piece of paper. I give her work. I give her an exit.

She hesitates. She understands. I see it in her eyes: she thinks it’s wrong, and at the same time she feels right here is not a synonym for good.

“Sure,” she says finally. She bends over the list as if numbers matter more than names.

He exhales. His fingers relax.

“She’s acting strange,” he says softly to me, as if Lotte isn’t there.

“She’s new,” I say. “She still has to get used to things.”

“You’re not new,” he says.

I smile. “No.”

And I feel something cold, something resembling power, under my ribs. Not because I’m manipulating him. But because I was able to stop it. Because I was able to save the day again with one small lie that feels like truth to him.

4. He – Visit from the nurse

The others ruin it.

They come in with their coats and their questions and their looks saying: We can see you’re wrong. As if wrong is something you can fix with explanations. As if your head were a device with a reset button.

That woman — Lotte — said a name that didn’t fit.

He felt it immediately, because it didn’t sit right in his mouth. Mara. It was a hard name. A name with an edge.

He grew warm inside, not in a good way. He felt he had to fight. Fighting is exhausting. Fighting makes things disappear.

But Els did something. She slid something between him and the confusion. Water. A distraction not childish, but exactly on time.

With her, everything fits.

He doesn’t know how she does it, but she does. When he thinks of her, the world loses its sharp edges. The room feels like it used to, even if he doesn’t know when used to was.

He hears the nurse mumbling about dosages, and it slips past him. It’s noise. Els is his anchor.

When the others leave, she stays.

He follows her through the house like a shadow that has finally found a body. In the kitchen she rinses the glass. In the living room she folds a throw. Everything she touches finds its place. It’s as if she gives him a place too.

He sits down next to her.

“You’re not going to leave, are you?” he asks suddenly. It comes out of him without planning.

She looks at him. Her eyes are dark, a second too still. Then she shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “I’m staying.”

And something inside him loosens so deeply he almost wants to cry, though he doesn’t know why. Maybe because somewhere he senses closeness is scarce. That you have to hold on to it when it appears.

5. She – At the hospital

We have to go to the hospital. Not for him, for me. A check-up. Something small, I always say. But the doctor used the word risk last time, and since then it has been sitting in my stomach like a stone.

At the desk, the clerk asks for identification.

“Name?” she says.

He answers faster than I can. “Els van Dalen,” he says, with the certainty he only has when he believes he’s on familiar ground.

The clerk types. Looks up. “I don’t have an appointment for Els van Dalen.”

She looks at me. “Ma’am?”

This is the moment when I should correct him. This is administration. This is safety. This is my file, my body, my decision.

I feel all the logic in me rise like a strict mother: Say your name. Say it. Now.

But I look at him. He stands beside me as if protecting me. His hand rests on my forearm. The pressure is soft, familiar. Not gripping. Not controlling. Just: I’m here.

If I correct him now, I lose him. Not definitively as a person, but definitively as… this version. The version that breathes today. That drinks coffee. That stands next to me as if we are a couple in the present.

“I might be listed under my second name,” I hear myself say.

The clerk sighs and keeps typing. “Date of birth?”

I give my date of birth. That still works. I can still offer just enough truth to make the machine function.

She finds me. Prints a sticker. Hands it to me as if this were normal.

He smiles, relieved. “See?” he says. “It’ll be fine.”

Not visible. Not immediately. But I feel it as if a thread snaps—one you can never quite tie the same way again. I have traded my name for a quiet afternoon. I have moved myself one step further away while standing right next to him.

So close: always together.

Yet so far: in which I lose both him and myself.

6. He – At the hospital

The hospital is busy. People walk fast. Voices everywhere, like birds shrieking over one another. Sometimes it makes him dizzy. But not today. Today she is with him.

He holds her arm. Not because she can’t manage, but because otherwise he might lose it: the path, the reason, her.

Someone asks for names. That’s difficult. Names are slippery. Sometimes they slide away, sometimes they stick to the wrong things.

But Els does something clever. She gives a date. That helps. It’s a hook in time. He feels her protecting him. Not from the world, but from shame. From the moment everyone would see he no longer knows.

They sit down in a waiting room. There’s a fake plant there. The leaves are dusty. He looks at it and thinks: the plant is pretending too. The thought suddenly makes him cheerful.

Els looks at him, questioning.

“What?” she says.

He leans toward her. He smells her shampoo. It’s the same scent as before, when they still shared a bed without the night being full of holes.

“I’m glad you’re still you,” he says.

What he means: you’re the only one who stays. You’re the door that opens. You’re the chair that doesn’t vanish when I sit down.

He takes her hand. His thumb rubs over her knuckles. He no longer knows exactly how long they’ve been together, but he knows her hand has the shape of home.

“You know,” he says softly, as if confessing something, “sometimes I think I only found you late.”

She says nothing. But her hand squeezes back. Just a little. As if forcing herself to remain present.

He keeps talking, because he can, because she doesn’t stop him.

“As if I’m only really reaching you now,” he says. “Now everything finally stays quiet. With you, it’s calm.”

He rests his head against her shoulder. It feels good. It feels safe. It feels as if there is finally no distance at all.

He doesn’t notice she closes her eyes for a brief moment, not in rest, but in something else. Something that looks away.

She is here. She smells of shampoo. She falls silent at the right moments. She makes the day soft.

“I love you, Els,” he says.

Her breath catches. Very briefly.

Then she says, almost inaudibly, “I love you too.”

So close: with her, he is home.

Yet so far: sometimes he no longer knows who she is.