Page 37 of Forever is Now

And he looked shocked that I knew him, but then he said something like, “Ah, they told you I was coming.” Because of course he’d been told I had no memory.

But I said, “No.”

And we had this moment, this really weird moment, and my head began to hurt a lot. Because it was coming back.

Dad—living at his house—talking about Mum and Al—and...

And I remembered Mum and Al.

And Dad. Most of all Dad.

But I looked into his face, and I thought of how when I was Robert, looking into the mirror, trying to put together images of what I thought my parents might look like.

And now, here he was. My dad.

And I knew him.

And I remembered him.

And oh dear God. Fuck. I remember that thinking those words—because I then realized it. I might remember my wife too. And if that happened, I just didn’t know what it would mean for me and Mia.

##

Summer Taylor-Braddon: “It is very promising that Ruari recognized his father,” the doctor said to me.

The chair I was sitting on felt too cold, too hard, and its seat was too long. Its sharp edge pressed into the backs of my legs, just below my knees, and I’d been shuffling about a lot, trying to get comfy. But the doctor’s words froze me. I couldn’t speak at all. I mean, I tried to, but my throat was too thick, and I just couldn’t make a sound.

“It leads us to believe,” the doctor continued, “that the rest of his memory may come back. He may remember you too, in due course.”

They said it was like it was a wonderful prospect—and it should’ve been, of course. Only I couldn’t help thinking that it would just make this whole mess even worse. And then I hated myself for thinking that, as I’d do anything to get Ruari back, and if he remembered anyone, it should’ve been me, not his deadbeat dad.

I don’t recall what else was said—all I can remember is how I pressed my legs into the sharp edge of the seat then, because it was painful and I wanted to concentrate on that, the physical pain, rather than the gaping hole inside me. Why would Ruari remember his father and not me?

“It just doesn’t make sense,” I told Mum later. “It really doesn’t—that man wasn’t there for him at all! Not when it mattered.”

“Oh, love.” Mum hugged me, and I breathed in her perfume—that thick...clagginess. It wrapped around me like it was suffocating me.

Like I’d never breathe again.

[She clears her throat]Ruari’s father got him to move back to England though. To move in with him. Mia and the kids too. It was January this year—2024—when they finally did it. Just like that, they were back on my home territory.

Not the same town, of course not. Not even the same county. They were living in Bristol.

I stayed firmly in Okehampton, but I had these dreams of getting the train up to Bristol, of storming around there. Of making him remember me—doing whatever was necessary to ensure. Because Ruari, my Ruari, he was still in there. I just had to find a way to wake him up.

I kind of became fixated on that. I was spending pretty much all my time, trying to find a cure for his amnesia. I mean, I had his phone number and Mia’s too, but I wasn’t actually in contact with him any more. The two of them didn’t want to be. But I still felt this urge to research, to find a way to bring Ruari back.

Mum said to me more than once that it wasn’t healthy, that maybe I should just let him go. He had a new life, after all. Kids.

But he wasmylife.

I read about hypnosis, psychotherapy, all these different things that could apparently bring memories back. I wanted to find out if he’d even come back to Okehampton at all, if he’d walked the places that he used to be familiar with, if anything had prompted his memories, but I just couldn’t bring myself to text him. I think I was scared that he’d tell me he had but that the answer was ‘no’. That that part of his life was maybe just gone. That it wasn’t there, waiting to be recovered.

##

Ruari Braddon: We did go back to Okehampton, me and Mia. Well, it was mainly me that wanted to go. She didn’t. She was pretty stressed. She was thirty-four weeks pregnant by then, and we were living in Bristol. Pretty near the city center. I thought she would’ve liked it there. Liked the arts culture. The music.

But she was missing the surf life. Missing Australia really.

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