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The kettle clicks off. I don’t move. I’m still holding the countertop, like if I let go, I’ll fall through the floor.
Across the kitchen, Beau stares into the pantry, his pajama top buttoned wrong. He looks like he’s searching for something
familiar in a stranger’s cupboard.
“Would you like tea or coffee?” I ask gently.
He turns, his brow pinched. ‘What’s the difference again?”
I clear my throat. “One’s brown water. The other’s brown water that actually tastes like something.”
That gets a quiet laugh and I grab on to it like a rope.
“The one you make,” he says. “I like that one best.”
I pour the coffee. Guide him to his spot at the table.
He touches the wood grain like it’s the first time. “This is . . . ours, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. You dragged me to seven furniture stores before you chose it.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, and you made a great choice.” I smile.
Beau has taken his diagnosis like he takes everything else—with more concern for others than for himself. He rubs his right
eyebrow. “I’m sorry I’m sick, Griffy. I should’ve noticed earlier. You must be so tired.” He says this repeatedly, as if dementia
is a parking fine, a mistake he’s made.
I take his hands in mine, willing him to stay with me, but he is slipping fast.
My phone pings. It’s from my former pastry chef.
Just wanted to say again how much I’m loving the MG. Finally had the chance to take her to Apollo Bay on the weekend. Drives
like a dream!
My stomach turns. I tilt the screen away and lock it quickly so Beau won’t see.
I can still hear him, cheery behind the wheel, as we set off on one of our Monday drives. He drove like the car and he were
one. And I trusted him completely.
Until I didn’t. I remember the fear, the white of my knuckles as they gripped the seat. The neighbor’s garage bin knocked
to the ground. The moment I realized I could no longer be a passenger, in the car or in our marriage.
I sold it. Out of sight, out of mind—for him, maybe. For me? I hear the engine every time I step into the shower. Still feel
the betrayal clinging to my skin. Selling the car was like having an affair, only there were no other arms to run to. No one
I’d ever let in.
“Where are they?” Beau slams the table, near tears.
I startle.
“Where are my . . . the . . . the car starter?!” he screams. The Beau I knew never raised his voice.
“Don’t worry, they are safe.”
He looks at me, broken. “Do I have it? That . . . the thing?”
“Yes. You’ve had it over a year, my love.” I reach for the sugar bowl.
There’s a faded scrap of music paper stuck crookedly to the edge, the staves barely visible beneath his scrawl: SUGAR. Griff likes two. You like one. Don’t forget. He put them everywhere when he’d first learned his fate. The fridge is littered with them—little compositions of panic.
One is taped to a photo of us in Portsea. Wind in my hair, his arm around me. He’s written across the top in thick black ink:
Griff. Husband.
My throat tightens.
Another note above it: Don’t eat Griff’s chocolate—he WILL get mad.
I let out a breath: half laugh, half ache. All these notes are stuck around the house like breadcrumbs. He wrote them for
himself. Except it’s just me following them now.
Notebooks lie open on the counter: some neat, others dog-eared and scribbled out. I flip through one gently. The first page
says “OUR LIFE” in careful block letters. A list follows: our first date, Italy trip, that time the power went out and we
ate cold soup by candlelight and called it gazpacho.
A few pages later, it starts again. Same heading. Same stories. Smaller, shakier handwriting. As if he was trying to pin them
down before they vanished. The desperation reflects off the paper in the quiet way he’d tried to stay. Like if he stopped
labeling the world, he’d vanish from it entirely. And I would be the only one left holding the map.
That night, I wake. The sheets are damp beneath me again. My pajamas cling, cold and sour. The smell hits before the memory
does. Beau’s been incontinent for weeks now, and pads are no longer cutting it. I could sleep in the spare room, but waking
up wet is still better than waking up alone.
Beside me, Beau sleeps soundly.
I blink into the soft morning light. My gaze drifts to the bedside lamp. Beneath it, another scrap of music paper clings to
the wall: This is your room. You are safe.
I stare at it for a long time, wishing I could feel safe here. Yet these walls have seen so much fear. The terror of waking
up and wondering what else the disease had taken from us; the nights, littered with waking.
I try to lift him from the mattress like I always do to change the sheets. But something goes wrong, and pain shoots down
my back. I grab the bedside table, gasping.
Beau sits up slowly, blinking like he’s trying to place the room.
“I’m okay,” I rasp, though I’m not. Not even close.
I force myself to the bathroom, limping. Lowering myself onto the closed toilet lid, I cry, because this is the one room in the house where I’m able to be alone.
I still don’t call for help. There’s no one who can help.
When I emerge, Beau is lingering in the hall doorway, his eyes nervously sweeping over the rooms as if trying to memorize
them. “I think I have to go, don’t I, Griff? It’s time for me to go . . . ?”
I shake my head.
“I don’t want to leave our home, Griff. There are too many memories here. I’ve already lost a lot.”
I take his hands in mine, breathing through the pain. “The memories don’t belong to these walls, mate. They belong to us.
And when you can’t carry them anymore, I will.”
He looks at me, eyes wide, fragile. “But what if you’re not strong enough?”
I take his face in my hands, steady as I can. “Then I’ll just have to get stronger,” I say, terrified by how powerless I already
feel. “And lucky for you, I’m too bloody stubborn to quit on us now.”
“You’re not going to leave me?”
“I’ve left jobs. Countries. Other people. But I’ll never leave you, handsome. Not ever.”
Beau’s voice cracks. “And if I get lost?”
“Then I will always find you.”
For a moment he lights up, but as his gaze drifts past my shoulder, the smile falters. His hand hovers over the largest of
the notes, taped to the mirror.
You are out. You are proud. You are accepted.
My throat tightens. How cruel, that the thing he fought hardest for—the right to live as himself—might be the thing memory dares to loosen. I watch his lips shape the words as if he’s trying to anchor them, to keep hold of a truth that slips more each day.
“Is it true?” Beau looks at me, eyes wide and searching, the way a child seeks reassurance.
“Yes, my love,” I whisper.
He lets out a long, trembling breath, the relief so raw, so total, it’s almost too much to watch, as though my one word has
given him back the ground beneath his feet.
Apart from his viola playing, there’s only one other pathway left that’s been mercifully untouched: his tastebuds.
They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but it’s also the way to Beau’s mind. And in this, I am the
driver and he is the passenger. It’s how I tell him I love him.
Later that afternoon, after some strong painkillers, I cook like a man possessed. Every day, while Beau naps, I’ve been re-creating
a scene from a lifetime of culinary memories: vanilla slice from Sorrento, fresh raspberry sorbet from that tiny farm in Tassie,
Nutella crepes in front of the Eiffel Tower. Some nights, I set the scene with music and props. Once, for our dining-table
trip to Paris, I even wear a beret. Nothing is too much for him. Because when he eats, he’s here, with me. The fog lifts.
He remembers.
“You’ve outdone yourself, Griff!” he says as he sits at the table one evening, savoring the smooth delicacy I’ve placed before
him. “This is the best chicken paté I’ve ever tasted, love.”
The words are a tonic for my weary soul. I run my hands through his hair. “Maybe I’ll make bruschetta tomorrow, like the one
we tasted in Rome?”
The automatic doors hiss open as we step into the supermarket the next morning. I keep one hand on the trolley, the other
hovering near Beau’s arm.
I survey the colorful array of heirloom tomatoes on offer, striped ones, deep red ones, one that looks eerily like Danny DeVito.
I pick one up, turn it in my hand, trying to decide if it’s good enough.
When I look up, he’s gone. I abandon my cart, calling his name down the aisles, running, searching.
I finally find him in the pet food aisle. He’s holding an open tin of Chicken Delight cat food, scooping it into his mouth with bare hands. His face lights up when he sees me. “Oh, Griff! You’ve outdone yourself. This is the best chicken paté I’ve ever tasted, love.”
The tomato slips from my grip and ruptures on the tiles, skin splitting open. And somewhere deep inside, I rupture with it.
The depression that has been hovering for months digs in its claws. I know I can never cook again.
My partner can no longer hear his own love language.