Say You'll Remember Me

by Abby Jimenez

“Did you will the song to never end too? Because that’s the fucked-up part.”

“Are you cold?” I whispered. “Do you want my shirt for your legs?”

I tucked her under my chin and I wished we were in a bed. Not to do anything, just so I could make her warm and comfortable. Let her sleep.

I had the strongest, most pervasive feeling of protectiveness over her. I didn’t like her on the ground. I didn’t like that she might need something that I couldn’t get for her here. She was calm and taking this well so it made me less agitated, but I had a feeling if she was panicking I’d be trying to rip through the walls.

“My first pet was an orange Persian cat named Ginger,” she said. “We found her in a trash can. This cat was so gross, Xavier. She looked soggy, like one of those koalas that has chlamydia—”

“Are you telling me that I might have buried Hambert alive?” I sucked air through my teeth. “Xavier! I’m going to cry!” She laughed. “I’m sure Hambert was dead. Or that he died peacefully in his sleep. In his shallow grave.”

Then she yawned into the back of her hand. “Come here,” I said, pulling her back in. She nestled up against me and we sat there in a long sleepy pause.

“I like that your friends love you so much. I like that Becca said good things about you in the bathroom. I like that the dogs on the boat liked you, even the one who didn’t like men,” she said. “I think you can tell a lot about someone by how animals react to them.” “You can tell a lot about someone by how they treat their pets,” I said.

“I think you’re beautiful,” I said. “I like how you smell. Pooter smelled like you. I like that you rescued her and didn’t give up on her. I liked that you did what you said you were going to do and tried to save her. And I like that you told me I’m an asshole.”

“I think that’s why my emotions don’t get away from me.” “Why?” “Because when I showed how I felt, that’s how they knew how to hurt me.”

She peered at me gently and I gazed back at her. Her mouth was red from the Ring Pop. Mine was probably blue. The disco ball shimmered and threw prisms over us and not a single part of any of this felt believable. I didn’t know how or in what way, I just knew something important was happening and that knowing it in real time was a gift.

I held the lava lamp he made her give me in my lap the whole way back to my apartment.

“Are you moving?” “Yes.” He paused. “To where?” It was a long moment before I replied. “California.”

“What happens now?” he asked quietly. I squeezed my eyes shut. “You forget me.”

Mom stared at me blankly. No recognition. No suspicion, no surprise, no reaction at all.

She looked so tired now, like she was blurring along with her memory. Smearing and fading and wasting away.

The spaceship had altered my DNA. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I thought giving it some distance and time would make it better, but it hadn’t.

It’ll get men to talk to you.” I made a face. “Ewww, I don’t want men to talk to me.” “Well, you should. If you don’t use it your vagina will shrivel up.”

“If it breaks down, just open the hood. The men will come. Maybe you should do that even if it doesn’t break down.”

He was too attractive for me anyway. It was probably a red flag. I should just stick with medium-ugly men like I’m used to.

“The car!” She beamed. I smiled. “Yeah. You remember it?” “Of course, it’s my car.” I watched her for a moment. The pure joy on her usually expressionless face.

I wondered if the dementia felt like walking through a gray version of the world. And then all of a sudden a bright blue car from your youth appears and you know something again. You remember, and it’s the only thing in color. Right now my world was also a little gray. The last time I saw color was that night in the escape room. The promise of something can be so vibrant. And everything feels so dull after it’s gone.

“What the hell is that?” my brother asked, sitting up. “My cat.” “The butthole one?” “Yes, the butthole one.

“I brought you peanut brittle from that place you like in Washington. I hope you choke on it.” “I won’t, just to piss you off.”

Then Mom saw Tristan. Her whole expression changed. “Tristan!” “Hi, Mommy!” He jumped off his stool and hugged her and I watched her face over his shoulder, lit and happy. Color in a gray world.

I didn’t care that she remembered him. I was glad she did. I cared that she didn’t remember me. What about me made me less permanent? Why did I fade to gray when everyone else was bright?

don’t cook,” Tristan said. “Yeah, we know, you’re useless,” Jeneva said. “You can buy dinner then. And not crap either. I’m not eating pizza twice a week because you suck.”

“I want to do Mom’s makeup every morning,” I said. Everyone stopped and looked at me. Grandma blinked. “She doesn’t need it…” “She does,” I said, looking at the faces peering back at me. “I’ll take it off at night. I think she deserves to look like she’d want to. Or like she would if she could. And I want to dye her hair too. Back to the color she used to do it.”

“No offense, Grandma, but this place is giving 1962.”

“The hot vet guy from the UFO,” Tristan said. “The one who gave her the hoodie she wears twenty-four seven,” Jeneva said. “I don’t wear it twenty-four seven!” I said, literally wearing it.

His warm voice felt like I was being wrapped in fleece.

“Pooter’s poops are fine. Her butthole too. Unless you’re calling for something else.”

“I’d like to come see you,”

“Why?” I asked again. He was quiet on the other end. “Because I need to be in the same room as you,” he said. “Preferably one with a door that unlocks.”

“How long were you there?” “Long enough to hear you’ve got a penis flying in from Minnesota—” Tristan said.

She was a vision, waiting for me outside the baggage claim, leaning on the door of a classic blue convertible. I accidentally came out a different exit than the one I told her I would, so I saw her before she saw me. When she looked over and our eyes locked, I was done for. I was going to go broke coming here. I knew it immediately.

I felt instantly content. Like I’d been living with some invisible driving force to get here, running at a low hum, and suddenly the engine cut off.

“This is your car?” I asked, looking past her at it. “Yeah.” She nodded over her shoulder. “It’s magic. Apparently if you lift the hood, men appear from nowhere and ask you if you need a jump.”

“I got you a Spumoni. Maraschino cherries.” “And to thank you, I will take you to eat the best burger you’ve ever had in your life.” She set the bag on the seat and then came back around to hug me again. Content.

“How’d you like your burger?” I asked. “It needed mustard,” he said.

“Why are you here, Xavier?” Contemplative gaze. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why did you let me come?”

The hand thing made my heart do somersaults, but the protective thing—this was my currency. I didn’t get to shut my brain off very often. Most women don’t. The constant situational awareness that we have to practice is exhausting. But Xavier made me feel like I could mentally check out. I could just be here bopping around, enjoying being outside and surrounded by these eccentric weirdos and not have to worry about how safe I was because he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like that with someone. Definitely with my dad, but not really with the men I dated. Not that they made me feel unsafe, but Xavier made me feel like the second I was with him, I entered into his care. I trusted him.

An old guy with a tip jar and a shitty amp was singing “My Heart Will Go On.”

“I told them the truth,” he said, turning to me. “That you gave me the most unforgettable night of my life, then told me to forget it.” “Come on, Eileen, I’m sure you’ve had much more memorable nights than that one,” I said. “It was my first alien abduction. You always remember your first.”

These were the kinds of things that Mom still remembered. Core memories so old, they’d be the last to go. She was forgetting from the present backward. Her life on rewind, people and places and experiences blurring and vanishing. Maybe at the end all that would be left would be a memory like this one.

Xavier pulled me closer and I leaned my head against him. He was warm and firm and protective. I felt… peace. A final memory like this one wouldn’t be so bad.

“For the record, I will never have a good time if you aren’t having a good time. We should plan activities accordingly.”

“Think about mustard, it’ll all be over soon.”

These memories would be sharp and embedded. And she would be too. She already was. I glanced down at my date, clinging to me for dear life. I would be jealous if she was clinging to another man. Deeply, deeply bothered by it. And that was something else I needed to unpack because I didn’t live here, so she was going to do this with someone else eventually because it couldn’t be me. I hated that it couldn’t be me. Which circled me back to what was I even doing here? If I knew this visit was pointless, why had I come? And yet, there was nowhere else I’d rather be, and nothing would have kept me from coming short of her forbidding me to do it. The urge was too strong.

She keeps a Super Soaker full of Tabasco next to her bed because she doesn’t like guns.”