The Cost of Forgetting You

by Hannah Bird

Telling herself that because she chose him, she deserves what she gets. It’s what I’ve been telling myself for too long.

At what point do you stop hoping your parents will change and finally start to accept them for who they are? People who are equally as damaged as you, and doubly as set in their ways.

Other students used to tell me how much they wished he was their dad, and my chest would swell with pride. But at home? He made himself so small. We both did. We cut our edges into the exact pattern of Mom’s roughest ones, just to make it all fit a little better. Keep the peace a little longer.

“All’s fair in love and Rummy,”

“I’m glad you’re getting out. Living your life. I did an elective rotation in geriatrics and saw time and time again that the caregivers were neglecting themselves because they thought it was selfish to do otherwise. But it’s not. The best thing you can do for your family member is take care of yourself.”

I couldn’t let my suffering become hers, too.

When depression finally arrived, it cast a cloak of numbness over my heart and mind. Left me desolate. Bereft. If grief is feeling everything all at once—anguish over the loss, longing for their return, even joy at the memories you once shared—then depression is the complete lack thereof. There is no pain, no hope, and certainly no happiness.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t respond. He keeps showing up for me. Coming for me. Waiting for me to be ready to be found.

How do I explain to him that I think I know exactly how he felt for Lucy, because it’s the same love

I’ve held for her son for my whole life? It’s the torch I’ve carried, one I didn’t even know my father passed on to me before today. One I never would’ve had if he’d gone after what he truly wanted.

“Have you ever considered that it’s not that you aren’t capable of this, but rather that you’re capable of so much more?

No mother should ever speak to their child in a way that they’d be ashamed for others to overhear.

“Not someone else. You.” She smiles. “Just less of an island. More of a peninsula, maybe, to start with?”

It’s weird how anger gets such a negative rap. It can be such a source of power, of drive. And having someone be angry for you? That can change your life.

“No one ever tells you that standing up for yourself involves killing off the version of you that allowed that treatment to go on all this time. It feels like shit because it’s murder, Delilah. A vigilante killing, but a killing all the same.”

“I don’t remember much,” I admit. “Don’t worry. I’m a good teacher.”

“But there are good ways, too. Like going after your dream job or living someplace just because you love it. Taking the one you love for yourself. Believing you deserve it.

I hope you’ll continue to be selfish in the very best ways.”

“The cost of forgetting you,” he whispers into my hair, “is that I’ll never be able to make it right. To show you how very sorry I am for the way I let you down.”

“I’d do it differently, you know. If I could. I’d tell you the truth. Set a better example. It’s my first time living life, sweet pea, but I wish for your sake it were my second so I had better lessons to teach you.”

It’s perhaps the only blessing of his disease, that wounds ripped open can so quickly be mended.

Guilt is a half-starved rodent crawling around my insides, gnawing at anything it can get its paws on.

“I learned a long time ago not to argue with you when you’ve made up your mind that you’re doing what’s right for someone else.” She glances over at me, half her face cast in shadow. “I just wonder when, if ever, you’ll consider if you’ve done what’s right for you.”

It’s the second time today I’ve watched a part of my heart walk away. There’s so little of it left, it’s a wonder it still beats at all.

I give him hell because he can take it. Because he won’t think less of me for it.

Love is a lot of things. It’s reckless when you want to be careful. Gentle when the world is anything but. It’s choosing a life you’d never want for yourself, because you have a little girl on the way with someone you just met. It’s kissing your best friend beneath a willow tree in a quiet meadow in the forest. Taking them back there after life got in the way, only to find those feelings never really left.

Love is a cowboy with strong hands and a gentle heart guiding a new calf safely into the world. Holding his mother’s hand as she

left it. It’s that same cowboy finding me when I’m trying so hard to be lost. Show...

“You are all I’ve ever wanted, Temptress. You’re every dream I’ve had, every damn hope for my future. Even when I thought you were lost to me, I prayed for you. Swore my soul to whoever would take it if you’d just come back home so I could say I was sorry. Tell you what I’d always known was true but was too scared to say when we were kids. I love you, Delilah. I’m so damn gone for you, it’s insane. You will never be an obligation to me. You’re my whole world.”

You look good wearing nothing but sunshine.”

“Exactly. I’ll be with you till the very end, Delilah. And if ever there’s a time where you can’t remember, I’ll do it for both of us. I promise.”

How could I be scared of dying, when I get the pleasure of leaving on a high note?”

And that love is the greatest gift, the greatest burden, I’ve ever had the privilege of bearing.”

“I’ll die without you ever finding out how imperfect I actually am. I’ll always be this tidy, beautiful thing in your memory. Never the broken woman I’ve seen in the mirror my entire life.”

“We’ll get another life, Lucy. Another chance.” I lift our joined hands to my lips. “I promise. I’ll find you when I get there, and I’ll never let you go.”

“Maybe we already got our second chance.” Her hand pulses in mine, and her words are barely above a whisper as she juts her chin toward her son and adds, “Maybe it’s them.”

When Lucy left the world, she took music with her.

“If there ever comes a day when you can’t, then I promise I’ll take care of our girl. Now let’s get you to the hospital and get you feeling better, okay?”

place a bundle of white carnations at the base of Mama’s headstone. They stand out in stark contrast against the dark granite. I always consider bringing more elaborate, expensive flowers, but these remind me of my mother. And of Delilah. Fragile at first glance, with delicately carved petals, but they can endure almost anything.

“You be good to her,” Mama whispered, the day she closed her eyes for the last time. “Whoever you marry, you promise me that you will treat her with kindness and respect. That you’ll give her space when she needs, and pull her close when she doesn’t. That you’ll love her the way I’ve loved you, and then some. And if it’s Delilah⁠—” “It won’t be Delilah, Mom,” I’d chastised, because I couldn’t let myself hope for such a thing. “If it is,” she repeated, ignoring me, “you give her an extra hug from me when you get the chance, okay? And tell her I love her. And I’m proud of her.”

my bride. The love of not just this life, but every single one I’ll be given. My forever in an existence that promises nothing except this singular moment, and is all the more precious for it.

You are my love. My life. My heart. You are my oldest friend and the person who knows me best. You are remarkable. And you are mine.