Trust Exercise

by Susan Choi

As she pulls these off and steps up to the bar to order a Coke, David sees her. “The fuck,” he says. “I was just thinking of you. Remember Martin?” Karen finds this an interesting, excellent question. Like all her favorite questions it seems so simple and obvious that for David to have asked her seems idiotic at first. Does she remember Martin? But now the different layers of the question start to peel apart. Remember in what exact way? The dictionary tells us that “remember” means “to call something to mind, recall something forgotten.” Well, Karen has never forgotten Martin, so in this sense she doesn’t remember him. The dictionary also tells us that to remember is to keep something in memory. Without going down the rabbit hole and looking up “memory,” let’s give this one a check mark: yes, she does keep this something in memory. We also have, in this particular definition, “keep somebody in mind”—yes—“give somebody a gift”—you might say so, depending on “gift”—“send somebody greetings”—not lately—“commemorate somebody or something.” Commemorate: remember something ceremonially. This meaning is suddenly very appealing. It sticks in Karen’s mind, the way a lot of things do. David, who has his own share of problems, one of which is being too smart for every situation he puts himself in—he is too smart for his work life, his sex life, and definitely his life as a drunk, which takes up the biggest part of his time—would probably enjoy this little lecture on the meanings of “...