The adventurous little mole, whose name was Oscar, lived in a mole-hole at the bottom of the sea with his unadventurous mother and father and his timid little sister who was scared of
...
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On the night Paul was supposed to remember our son, I cooked enough fried rice for three.
I had done it without thinking. For six years, there had been three of us. My hands still measured out the same amount, although Darren had been dead for almost two years.
I put the extra bowl of fried rice in the fridge. Tomorrow, I would not understand why it was there.
At 11pm, we were due at the clinic.
At midnight, Paul would remember Darren.
I would forget him for a month.
The treatment had been Paul's idea. After Darren died, neither of us could manage continuing with ordinary life. We constantly forgot to buy food. We constantly left messages unanswered. Sometimes we lay awake beside each other until morning, too exhausted to speak and too distressed to sleep.
We could barely remember a life before him. We had never imagined a life after him.
The clinic offered us a way to take turns grieving.
They could temporarily block one parent's memories of the child. The memories remained intact, ready to be restored, but for a month that parent could not access them at all. They would know they had lost a son because someone had told them. They would not remember holding him, raising him, or watching him die.
The other parent would remember everything: his laughter, the weight of him asleep in their arms, and every night spent beside his hospital bed, listening to him cry in pain and ask when he could finally go home.
"Is there any way we could both remember him but... forget that he died?" Paul had asked. "Or at least make losing him hurt less?"
The doctor said the treatment could not do that.
Paul and I agreed to alternate. One month, I remembered Darren while Paul looked after me. The next, Paul remembered while I looked after him. Before each appointment, the parent who was about to forget wrote themselves a note explaining how to care for the one who would remember.
My notes reminded me which meals Paul could usually manage.
His notes reminded him to sit beside me when I couldn't sleep, and to listen whenever I wanted to talk about Darren, even if I told the same stories.
Once, he had written: "If she laughs, don't tell her she seems better. She already feels guilty whenever she forgets to be sad."
That evening, Paul came home with kaya toast from the bakery nearby. I struggled to sit up as he set the packet on our bedside table.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"You said you felt like having one," he said, setting the toast on the table.
I could not remember saying it. I had spent most of the afternoon trying to get myself out of bed.
We sat down to eat at the edge of the bed. He asked whether I wanted him to drive to the clinic, and I said yes. Then he put his plate down.
"I don't want to go tonight."
I kept my eyes on my plate.
"We have to leave soon."
"I know. I've been trying to tell you all week."
For a moment, all I could hear was the air-conditioning humming.
"You know what happens if we don't go," I paused, then spoke again. "I keep remembering. You keep forgetting."
Paul glanced towards the corridor. Darren's backpack still hung from a hook on the wall, his name stitched across the front. We had brought it home from the hospital and never unpacked it.
"I've read the letters I wrote before the treatment," he said. "I know I promised. But yesterday you found one of his socks in the laundry, and you sat on the floor holding it. You kept trying to tell me something, but you couldn't get the words out. All I could do was sit helplessly beside you."
He looked down at his hands, turning his wedding ring around his finger. Before Darren died, he would have reached for my hand without thinking. Now we often sat across from each other, neither knowing whether the other wanted to be touched.
"I knew he was my son. I knew I should have missed him too. But I couldn't even remember putting that sock on his foot." His voice quivered. "I'm frightened of remembering, and I'm ashamed that you have to beg me to keep my promise."
"It was the last thing of his left to wash," I said. "I kept looking through the basket for the other one. Then I realised there wouldn't be any more. He wasn't going to come home with his clothes dirty, and I wasn't going to turn his socks the right way out again."
Paul said nothing.
"I used to complain about that," I whispered. "Every time."
Paul reached for my hand, then stopped. I looked at his fingers resting on the bedsheet between us and remembered how often, this month, I had mistaken his silence for indifference.
"I've been counting the days," I admitted. "Every morning, I work out how many days are left until I can forget him. Then I look at his pictures and wonder how I can call myself his mother."
Paul took my hand.
"You've been doing this all month," he said. "You need to rest."
"So did you," I whispered.
He lowered his head. For a while, we sat with the plates on our laps, neither of us eating, neither of us knowing what else to say.
"Tell me something I can look forward to remembering," he asked quietly.
I desperately searched for a memory of Darren before he became ill, but all I could see was him in that hospital bed, growing weaker each day, the light slowly but surely fading from his eyes.
Eventually, I lifted my head and met Paul's eyes, a small smile forming.
"He used to pretend he was asleep when we got home," I said at last, "so you'd carry him up from the car. He'd squeeze his eyes shut, but he always put his arms around your neck before you picked him up."
"Did I ever tell him I knew?"
"No. Even when his feet were nearly touching the ground, you'd ask me to get the door because you didn't want to wake him. And I'd pretend I couldn't see him smiling into your shoulder."
Paul looked down at his hands again, as though trying to imagine the weight of Darren in his arms.
"And then?"
"You'd put him to bed. Sometimes he'd ask for water before you'd even left the room, and you'd act surprised that he was awake. Then he'd ask you to stay until he fell asleep properly. I'd come looking for you and find you asleep beside him, still in your work clothes, his tiny hand curled around your finger."
Paul looked up at me, a small smile softening his face. I reached across and gently squeezed his hand. For a moment, I could speak about Darren as we used to, knowing Paul wanted to hear every detail.
"We were happy, weren't we?" he asked.
"Yes," I whispered. "We were."
Later, while he cleared our plates, I wrote my note. At 10.30pm, he appeared in the bedroom doorway with the car keys.
"I'll go tonight," he said. "But if I'm struggling next month, can we talk about it? I don't want to wait until the last night to tell you again."
"Tell me whenever you need to," I spoke quietly. "I'll listen."
I put the note in my bag, and followed him out.
When I opened my eyes after the treatment, Paul was crying beside me.
"He wasn't asleep," Paul cried out. "All those times I carried him upstairs. I knew, but I never wanted to let him go."
I remembered telling him that story earlier. Now I had to imagine it from his words.
I reached for his hand, wanting to comfort him, but hesitated. I didn't know what to say. An hour ago, I remembered being frustrated at him for that same silence. Now I took his hand and hoped it was enough.
Once we were home, he lay beside me with his eyes closed.
"Will you stay until I fall asleep?"
"Yes."
His fingers tightened around mine. When his breathing finally steadied, I remembered what he had said about carrying Darren.
I kept holding his hand. I didn't want him to wake up and find that I had let go.
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