Memory

A Story by Kate Wehlann

Sure, she was a beautiful woman, dressed in a long, white wedding gown, smiling enigmatically, sort of like the Mona Lisa. Her hair was been pulled up into a bun and covered by a long veil that blended in with the beautiful dress she was wearing. He could see the dress’s details, even in the decades-old black and white picture. She was standing on a staircase wreathed in flowers, a dark carpet cascading down the stairs. Her face radiated beauty without the assistance of any jewelry but the sparkle in her eyes.

But, no, he didn’t recognize the figure in the photograph before him. There was this group of people, coming sometimes in twos, other times in groups of four or five, who were always pushing pictures at him, asking if he could remember anything. Sometimes something would come to his mind, a flashback of some event or person, but in milliseconds it was gone, replaced by a void of forgetfulness, if, in fact, he had ever had this memory to begin with. You could never tell with some people. His roommate had people come in all the time and get all excited when he said he remembered something he had never experienced before in his life. He was just so hungry for someone to be around him that he said he could recall the events they were talking about.

“No, no, I don’t know her. But, if you see her around, send her my way. She’s better looking than most of the girls in this dump.”

The man and woman sitting next to her bed looked at each other. This was one of the nicest nursing homes in the state, not to mention the most expensive. They had wanted their father to have the best, even if he didn’t know it.

The picture they had been showing him was one of their mother, his wife, on her wedding day. About two and a half years before, he had begun forgetting things and his condition had only spiraled downward from there. He couldn’t recall any of his family, not even his wife of over fifty years. Not his children, twins, a brother and sister, or any of their children, five combined. The pair became more and more discouraged as the weeks wore on.

The daughter, Sandra, nodded as her brother and she rose to leave. “We’ll do that, Dad.”

“Sam,” the old man corrected, “my children are off at college. I’m not your dad.”

“Right,” Kevin, the son, said, “Our mistake.”

They had graduated college twenty years ago.

The two left the room, silent tears rolling down their cheeks.

Sam leaned his head back on the mountain of pillows behind him and soon fell asleep.

It’s almost funny how things are better in some dreams. Wrongs don’t exist and you can go back in time to happier days. Dead loved ones come back to life to comfort the grieving, problems disappear and you can see what your life was like before they ever existed. Memories come back to recollection.

Through the mists of slumber, Sam could make out the figure of a woman with long, dark, wavy hair, pulled back in a big barrette coming towards him. He was laying in a hammock in his own backyard and she came and sat down beside him, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. She whispered something in his ear that he couldn’t quite make out, then got up to leave him to his nap. He called out to her as she walked away, but she didn’t turn back and then faded, along with the hammock and backyard, into the dark mists of sleep.

He awoke crying softly and couldn’t remember why.

© 2009 Kate Wehlann

Author's Note

This was an assignment I wrote last year for my Creative Writing class. We had to incorporate a photograph into a story in which the main character was both the opposite gender to yourself and at least 50 years your senior. The picture isn't mine and I don't remember where I found it.