"What would you do if I died?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Would you move on, get married again, you know... find someone else?"
"Definitely not re-marrying. Someone else, yeah...in the long run."
It's amazing how memories can play around in your head until you finally put them in boxes, categorise them and shelf them at the back of your mind. And then, some random day, the memory pops up and all you can feel is nothing but lost.
I sat on the navy blue carpeted floor and reached for the first box in front of me. It contained all of Todd's diaries and a couple of letters he'd stocked away. My fingers lingered on the black leather diary I had given him for his 27th birthday. Without hesitating, I opened it and landed on his last two entries.
02.02.2018
* Dinner with K at 9pm.
I had called him after I'd left work that day and he said he'd be occupied throughout the evening. My heart raced since I knew it was our 2 year anniversary and a huge part of me knew he would throw a surprise. I waited till 9:30pm and he still hadn't shown up or even called to update me. All my calls went straight to his voicemail.
Knowing he might have forgotten about our anniversary or simply stayed at work like he always would, I went to bed. I woke up to my buzzing phone at 2am to get the news that he'd been in a serious car crash and was in the I.C.U. Rushing to him was fruitless since he clearly chose to die in the end. But let me not be bitter about it for the moment. The accident left him paralyzed from the neck down to mostly his left side.
Doctor Patel and I did everything to let him know that life could still go on with physical therapy but clearly, Todd was deadset on giving up so, here we are.
I put the diary back and pushed the box aside. There was no way its contents were getting burned, not until I'd combed through each page. I hesitated mid-way as I pushed it under our bed and recalled his previous entry...
01.02.2018
*Pick up groceries for Kathleen
He did pick up groceries for me that evening...so, who the fuck is this other K?
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