Say You'll Remember Me

by Abby Jimenez

I never get why white men are grumpy. Like, we’re living in a patriarchy. You’re the most privileged class on the face of the earth. You’re not walking to your car with your keys through your fingers like wolverine and you’ve got bodily autonomy, why the bad mood?”

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.

I don’t know why I didn’t do these things as an adult. Why I had to wait to be taken. When I thought of activities to fill my time, I thought of volunteering, working longer, going to the gym. Grown-up things. My mind never went naturally to things that I might enjoy. It was like that switch was not available in my brain. Like the loss of it in my childhood was a permanent one and only someone else could get me there. “Is

If we were lucky, Mom had a decade. More. And I wasn’t missing a moment of it. I’d missed too much already. She couldn’t make any more memories with me. But I could still make memories with her. I would be a witness to her life, even though she was done witnessing mine.

We drove to Champlin and went to my favorite hole-in-the-wall sushi place, Ginza. I ordered us my favorites: gyoza, the hibachi, and an Old Man & the Sea, and a mango roll.

“You think she’s a narcissist?” “Oh, totally. She hasn’t spoken a word to you in over a decade but she has zero problems holding up your credentials like a trophy. And you know what’s sad? If you weren’t what you are, in spite of her, she’d do the opposite. She’d tell everyone what a failure you are and how she didn’t raise you to turn out like that.” “She would definitely do that,” I mumbled. “Of course. Because that’s the prophecy they foretold. And instead you’re this. You win.” Yes. I guess I did. Still. Samantha reached across the table and took my hand. “It should give you a bottomless sense of satisfaction to know that they are aware of who and what you are now, Xavier. And no matter how much she wants to brag about you, that’s all she’ll ever get. She won’t get to introduce you to people, or show them pictures of you with them on holidays. The facade won’t hold up. But just know that when it doesn’t, she’ll probably fabricate some reason for you to be the bad guy, because that’s what narcissists do. She’ll blame the lack of a relationship on you and say it’s something you did so they can be the victim because narcissists love that. But nothing they ever say or do will take away the fact that you are a doctor.

“I think we grow up and we either get harder or we get softer on our parents. We realize how fucked up they actually were or we give them a pass because adulting is hard and now we get it. They’re people and they make mistakes.”

“Because if you were my wife you would be my world. Everything starts with you and ends with you. Anything else is just the stuff that happens in the middle.”

“All I’ve got left are memories. You still have a chance to make them. I’ll be disappointed if you don’t.”

XAVIER’S ANNIVERSARY PLAYLIST FOR SAMANTHA “Harvest Moon,” Neil Young “Stop Feeling,” The Aces “Water Underground,” Real Estate “Remember When,” Wallows “Warm Blood,” Flor “Everywhere,” Fleetwood Mac “It Might Be You,” Steven Bishop “Amsterdam,” Gregory Alan Isakov

“Stars,” Sam Airey “Studio 6,” Matt Maltese “She Won’t Go Away,” Faye Webster “Loveless,” Lo Moon “Come On Eileen,” Dexys Midnight Runners