The Forgetting

by Hannah Beckerman

‘Semantic memory is recall of facts. Common knowledge, if you like. It’s different to episodic memory, which is an individual’s personal history.’

I say the name silently in my head, over and over, hoping the cadence of it will trigger a memory, or at least the echo of a memory. But there is nothing. Just a vast empty space where my memory must once have been.

‘What happened?’ Just two words and yet they feel dangerous in my mouth.

watch him leave, heart gently thudding at the thought that within twenty-four hours I will be going home to a house I cannot remember with a man I do not recall marrying.

‘It’s not easy to acknowledge that your parents hated you so much that they wanted to eradicate every trace of you.’

And the thought of it – the thought of sharing a bed with a man whom I can no more remember than if I’d met him for the first time two days ago – fills me with such overwhelming panic that my lungs seem to shrink, my chest contracting, the walls of my throat narrowing until I am struggling to breathe.

A past I cannot remember and a present that feels out of reach. It is as though my life has been fractured in two and I have no way of knowing whether they will ever fuse together again.

the question of when I will start remembering again.

The claustrophobia of being stuck indoors all day is making me feel trapped, as though I may suffocate by breathing in the same, stale air. Outside, the sun is shining, and as I look out of the window and see the blue sky beyond, I feel a decision being made.

She could no longer remember life without him and yet, some days, it seemed to her only moments since she had first held him in her arms.

The music weaves between my ribs, tightens its fist around my heart.

It is barely a chapter of my story and yet I feel as though I am standing at the top of a cliff as a strong wind threatens to force me over the edge.

I’m ready to find out more about who else was in my life before the crash.

My parents are dead. I do not remember them dying. I don’t remember anything about them at all.

I feel as though I am a collection of unrelated fragments, like broken glass that cannot fit together because the shards all come from different sources.

‘I don’t think there’s any prescribed way to feel when you’ve been through what you have. You just have to be kind to yourself and get through each day as best you can.’

‘My parents always warned me: be careful who you have kids with. Mortgages, joint bank accounts, marriages – you can extricate yourself from all of it. But have a child with someone and you’re linked to them for the rest of your life.’

‘It’s my baby, isn’t it?’ Five short words and yet now they are out in the open, they take on a life of their own, and I know I can never fetch them back.

But sometimes being scared of something is precisely the reason you need to do it.

“He always made me feel like the most important person in the room.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?’

‘Because that’s what bothers me. Fairy tales don’t actually exist.’

in spite of the resolution to their conflict, somewhere beneath the wall of Livvy’s chest, a caged bird flapped its wings.

‘I hate to say this, but a man never hurts a woman only once. There’s always a second time.’

Stephen doesn’t want me to remember anything about my past. He is fully invested in my amnesia. Because if I do remember, there is a risk that I will find out, not for the first time but the second, that he is being unfaithful to me.

He holds my gaze and it is written clearly on his face: the deluded belief that it is true.

‘You love me? You tell me my entire family’s dead – that my son is dead – and you call that love?’

‘This isn’t what love looks like, Stephen. Love is about wanting the best for somebody, not imposing your will on them. It’s not about cutting them off from everything and everyone they care about. You don’t love me. You don’t know the meaning of the word.’

‘Whatever I am without you, it’s got to be better than whatever you’re trying to turn me into.’

I walk away, towards whatever my old life looked like, whatever the past may have held and the future is yet to reveal. I walk away and I don’t look back.

there may always be the odd hairline fracture if you look closely enough, but with sufficient care in the reconstruction, those chinks should be barely visible to the naked eye.

All I can do is love him, nurture him, show him a different way of being and hope it is enough.

I know I have to believe that with love and kindness I can help make Leo a better man than his father. I can help make him a good man.

‘Dominic has already stolen months of your life from you. It’s up to you now whether you let him steal your future.’