Page 29 of Forever is Now

Mum came to my rescue, placing her hand on my arm as I sat down for what felt like the hundredth time. “It’ll be okay,” she said. There were tears in her eyes. “You’re getting Ruari back.”

I’d not thought before how hard this must be for her. I was getting a second chance that had never been offered to her. I smiled, was about to say something, when the door opened.

The first person wasn’t Ruari. It was a tall, thin Black man in a suit, and the second person wasn’t him either—that was an Asian woman who was speaking on her phone. The third person was a white policeman, and then—then I saw him.

Ruari Braddon stepped hesitantly into the room, walking in a way that he’d never walked before. He’d always seemed so confident. So sure of himself, even when he was at school and shy. He had this presence. But now he walked with the air of someone much smaller, much shier. It was like his body was falling in on himself. He glanced around anxiously. His brows knitted together—and that was a familiar expression on his face. I’d seen it so many times before.

And that was enough for me.

I couldn’t move fast enough. “Ruari!” My heart pounded, and I reached him. My arms sprang around him, and I held him so tight. I was shaking, trembling so hard that I was nearly falling over, but his arms fell around me, and he held me.

He didn’t smell like how he used to—the shock of that really hit me, made my tears fall onto his jacket. A corduroy jacket—something that he’d never have worn. But I didn’t care.

I held him and I cried, and he held me.

“Summer?”

I was vaguely aware of my mum and Annmarie talking to me, and then I felt a hand on my shoulder that wasn’t Ruari’s. I wanted to swat it away, but of course I didn’t.

I just pulled back from Ruari enough to see his face. He had aged in the last six years. Quite a lot actually. And there was a scar on the side of his head that I figured must be from the tsunami. It was jagged and looked bumpy in texture, from the corner of his left eye, down his face. Long, meandering, like a snake.

He was sweating a bit, perspiration collecting on his brow, and he held his head at an angle.

His eyes were the same. Relief pounded through me.His eyes were the same.

“Who...who are you?” he asked.

I laughed—it just burst out of me, and I couldn’t stop. I laughed and laughed, and during my laughter, the two of us got separated. Mum was now holding me, and I saw the worried look on her face. I heard snatches of the conversation then—from Annmarie, and the officials, and...

Ruari wasn’t joking. He didn’t know me. His eyes, though they were the same, they were also different. Because I fought until I was away from my mum’s arms and back in front of Ruari, looking into his eyes. For the lightheadedness, for the corners of his eyes to crinkle as he smiled and yelled, “just kidding!”

But he didn’t yell. He just stared at me.

There was an emptiness in those beautiful eyes of his. A lack of recognition.

Now, I’m angry about this, about not being told by the doctors, becausehe’s a bit confusedmeans he’s a bit confused, not that he has no fucking memory of our life together. Of me.

I don’t remember the rest of the reunion. I know that one of the reporters got it all on tape, that pretty much everyone in the UK has listened to it. It was broadcast everywhere—but I never wanted to listen to it. I must have shut myself off from my memory of it for a reason. To protect myself. A defense mechanism. The human brain is clever like that.

I know that he stayed in the room for seven more minutes. I know that people were talking about logistics and legalities. I know that I was referred to as ‘the legal wife.’ And I don’t really know much more.

Afterward, I cried into my mother’s arms. She cried too. Annmarie was still here. She patted my back in a way that I think was supposed to be comforting, but was anything but. Her nails were too long and they kept catching on the woolen jumper I was wearing. A jumper I chose because it was the first one that Ruari had given me. Out of all the jumpers.

And he didn’t remember me.

[Silence for five seconds]

Summer Taylor-Braddon: I began researching his condition a lot. Trying to work out if there was any way that his memory would come back. The doctors told me he’d been diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, and I began reading everything I could about it. It was a condition where memories from before a certain event were lost. Sometimes, these memories would just be inaccessible for a while, but other times, they’d have been deleted from the system, so to speak.

Ruari’s memories hadn’t returned in three years, and so his was considered permanent. But the more I read, the more I held out hope that it was just that he hadn’t been in the right environment to remember. I was who he needed. I could unlock his past for him. I could save him.

I spoke to his doctors frequently—as his wife, they didn’t question giving me information, though some of them seemed surprised when they saw me in person.

“I thought you had darker hair last time we spoke,” one said—which didn’t make sense at all and clearly meant they were getting mixed up with another patient’s wife.

It turned out that Ruari had been in and out of hospital a lot in these seven years, and in recent weeks, he’d had a few overnight admissions too. He’d been unwell, suffering from headaches, and it was noted in his file of course that he’d had an accident three years ago and had lost all memory thereof from before.

And I was leaving the hospital, one day, when I.. This woman stopped me. She had her hand on my arm, and she was trembling.

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