Remember at All Costs

He began to forget the simplest things.

At first he could not recall whether his son liked strawberry or peach yoghurt. Then the day of Maxs swimming lesson slipped his mind. Then, stepping out of the car park, he paused a heartbeat, unable to remember which gear he usually used to pull away.

The stall of the engine echoed a panic inside him; he sat gripping the steering wheel for several minutes, fearing to glance at the rearview mirror.

That evening he told his wife:

Somethings wrong with me. Theres a constant fog over my head.

She placed her hand on his forehead, then on his cheeka familiar gesture theyd shared for a decade.

Youre just exhausted, Ian. Youre not sleeping enough and youre working too much.

He wanted to shout, Its not tiredness! Its like trying to erase a person piece by piece with an eraser! but he stayed quiet. The fear in her eyes was sharper than his own.

***

He started writing everything down in a notebook.

Today is Thursday.
Pick up Max at 5:30pm.
Buy a loaf of wholemeal bread, not the white one. Emily doesnt eat the white.
Call Mum on Sunday at 12:00. Ask about her blood pressure.

Soon his phone became an extension of his body. Without it he felt helpless, just a body moving through a familiar world.

***

One day he truly got lost.

Not in a forest, not in a foreign town, but in the neighbourhood where he had lived for seven years. He walked his usual route from the Underground station, lost in his thoughts, looked up and didnt recognise the crossroads. The familiar pharmacy had vanished, replaced by a bright café that had never been there.

Ian froze, feeling a cold sweat under his shirt. Stranger­ly, people passed by as if nothing were wrong, paying him no mind. The world suddenly felt alien and indifferent.

He fumbled for his phone, opened the map. A blue dot blinked on an unfamiliar street. He typed his home address and followed the mechanical voice, feeling like a child being sent alone to the shop for the first time.

He arrived three hours later. Emily placed a cup of tea on the table in silence. Her quiet was worse than any outburst; he didnt know how to escape the shame.

Ive booked you with a neurologist, she finally said, not looking him in the eye Wednesday at four. Ill take the afternoon off and go with you.

He nodded, swallowing a lump. The thought of hospitals, white coats, early signs and agerelated changes filled him with animal dread. Now he would be a patient, spoken about in the third person.

***

Wednesday morning, while Emily was in the bathroom, Ian absentmindedly grabbed her phone to check the weather. His own lay on the charger.

On the screen were open tabs:

Dementia: early symptoms in men over 45
How to cope with a spouse who has memory problems
Support groups for families
Arranging guardianship

He flung the phone away as if it had burned his hand. He sank onto the edge of the bed, breathless. It wasnt just a medical report; it felt like a sentence on their shared life. Emily no longer saw a husband, a partner, a father; she saw a problem, an object of care.

***

The day at the clinic felt like being inside a soundproof dome. He answered questions, took tests like Name three words: apple, table, coin. Remember them. He stared at the examiners flashlight, while the only thought hammering his mind was the word guardianship hed read that morning.

When they left, dusk was settling. Emily clasped his arm tightly, almost spasmodically.

Well, the doctor said nothing critical, just stress. You need more rest. Ill heat up supper. Youll be hungry

He watched her profile, her pursed lips, the crease of worry near her eye. She was playing the part of a loving wife who believed in a better outcome. He saw the fear, the fatigue, the endless line of days in which he would become more childlike while she became a caretaker.

At the car, Emily handed him the keys.

Youre better at parking.

It was a simple, ruthless test. He turned the ignition and forgot where the turnsignal lever was. His hand hung in the air, searching for a familiar knob.

He stared at the dashboard, the buttons now a scrambled alphabet. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply.

Emily his voice cracked I cant

In the quiet cabin his words sounded like a final verdict. He expected reproach, tears, perhaps a comforting phrase. Instead Emily opened the drivers door, walked around the car, slipped back in, and gently touched his shoulder.

Move over.

He shuffled into the passenger seat. She buckled up, eased the car forward, eyes fixed on the road. At a traffic light she brushed the back of her hand against her cheek, a fleeting, almost imperceptible gesture.

***

Through the side window he watched the flickering lights of a city that was no longer his. He realised he was no longer just losing the way home; he was losing his way to himself. The woman at the wheel, his wife, was becoming a kind, weary stranger who was driving a helpless passenger somewhere unknown.

The silence between them held the worst truth: she seemed to have accepted this route.

***

A quiet war beganagainst the illness, against himself, against the remnants of their family.

Emily instituted a new system. She hung a large calendar on the fridge with bold headings: Blood tests, Neurologist, Physio. She stuck labels on the cupboard doors, noting their contents. She bought a pillbox and arranged every morning his vitamins, nootropics, and a calming tablet. She called every hour, monitoring his movements, activities, medication, even his thoughts.

Their tenyearold son Max sensed the tension before he understood it. He grew unusually quiet.

One afternoon Ian tried to help Max with a maths problem and froze before the simplest equation. Numbers danced before his eyes, refusing to form meaning. Max looked first at his father, then at Emily, frightened.

Emily leaned in quickly:

Dads just exhausted, let me

Max nodded but stepped back, his gaze now wary, as if his father had become a fragile, unpredictable object.

***

They argued far less now. Once they could shout over a pile of unwashed dishes, slam a door, then an hour later hug and laugh at their silliness. Now Emily merely sighed and washed the dishes in silence. Her patience felt like a prison guards virtueimpeccable and crushing. He caught himself waiting for her to snap, wondering when she would finally cry, When will this end? or break down from helplessness. That would be honest, a sign she was still there, in the same boat, even if the boat was halffilled with water.

She held on, and that terrified him more than anything.

***

One evening, after Ian asked for the fifth time in an hour whether hed turned the iron off, Emily could no longer stay calm.

She didnt shout. She spoke quietly, looking past him:

Ian, Im so tired Im scared Ill fall asleep at the wheel taking Max to school.

There was no blame in her voice, just a plain, undeniable fact. The simplicity made his dread grow even sharper.

***

At some point Ian decided to write everything that involved Emily, so he wouldnt forget. He kept the same black notebook. Beside Buy grey bread appeared notes:

Emily laughs, throwing her head back, when something truly amuses her.
A tiny starshaped mole on her left collarbone, which she hides.
When shes very tired she furrows her nose, even in sleep.
She loves coffee with a dash of cinnamon.
She cherishes her old cardigan.

He collected these fragments like a drowning sailor clutching wreckage, fearing he might soon forget not only the way home but why that house was home, why he loved this woman. He wrote to preserve her for himself, and paradoxically, the act of desperate documentation brought back a flicker of feelingnot the old passion, but a sharp, aching tenderness for details he had never noticed before.

Emily saw the notebook one day. She watched him, brow furrowed, scribbling. When Ian left it on the table, she opened it, read the lines about his laughter, the mole, the furrowed nose, and she broke downfor the first time in monthsnot from fatigue or despair, but from a piercing, unbearable recognition.

That evening she didnt reheat dinner. She took his handnot the clinical grip she used at the doctors office, but a tentative, nervous oneand said:

Lets go to that pizza place we went to after our first date. If you still remember which pizza you ordered.

He looked at her, and for a moment his eyes, clouded by fear and medication, sparked with something. Not memory, but something else.

The one with ham and mushrooms, he whispered. And you had the vegetarian with pineapple. You said it was exotic.

She squeezed his hand and nodded, words failing her.

It wasnt a cure. The illness remained. Tomorrow he might forget how to tie his shoes. Max might drift away again. Emily might crack. Yet that night, at the noisy, neonlit pizzeria, they were briefly not patient and caretaker but simply Ian and Emily, lost together, finding each other again in the quiet between words.

The pizzeria was bright, loud, and foreignnothing like the cozy little eatery of their memory, but a glossy venue with neon signs and booming music. Ian fidgeted with a napkin, scanning the menu for familiar names. The Ham & Mushroom pizza was there, but under a different title. He hesitated.

Order whatever you want, Emily said softly. No irritation, just understanding.

He pointed at the first picture he saw. She ordered the vegetarian. When the pizza arrived, Ian took a bite, paused, and said:

Not right not what I remember.

Different taste? Emily asked.

No. I I cant recall that flavor. He placed the slice back, his eyes empty, and her heart tightened.

He wasnt upset about the recipe; he mourned the loss of the memory of that first datesweet, warm, smelling of yeast and hopethat had slipped away, leaving only a vague shadow and a note in his notebook: We were there. It was good.

He pushed the plate aside.

Lets just sit, he suggested. For the first time in months his words sounded like a request from an equal, not a surrender of the sick.

Emily reached across the table, laid her palm gently over his, not gripping, just touching.

After that, nothing changed dramatically. The calendar stayed on the fridge, the pillbox continued to be filled. But now, before handing him his morning tablets, Emily asked, Did you sleep well? Any headache? She asked not like a nurse, but like a loved wife.

He answered, not with a detailed report, but:

Strange dreams. Like being in a glass house, every room visible, but no doors.

She listened, nodding. In those moments the illness was no longer a hidden enemy but a heavy shared burden they carried together.

Max became their weatherreport. He saw his mother stop flinching when his father forgot something. He heard his father, instead of berating himself, say:

Oh dear, it slipped my mind. Max, can you remind me?

In that can you remind me? there was no contempt, only a humble request for help. Max felt the tension ease. One day he brought a drawing from schoola picture of the three of them holding hands under a bright suncaptioned: My family. Were strong. Ian taped it above the medication schedule on the fridge.

The disease, however, never disappeared. It was cunningoccasionally retreating, giving false hope, then striking at the most unexpected moments. One morning Ian awoke and didnt recognise Emily beside him. He stared at the woman in his bed with a chilling terror of incomprehension. Who was she? What was she doing there?

Panic rose in his throat. He backed against the wall. Emily opened her eyes, saw his wild, distant stare, and understood instantly. Her heart sank, but there was no panic, only an endless, exhausted sorrow.

Ian, she whispered, staying still so as not to startle him further its me. Emily. Your wife.

He breathed shallowly, his voice hoarse.

Do you have it written down? she asked calmly, as one might speak to a frightened animal. The starshaped mole?

He nodded weakly. She gently lifted her shirt, showed the little mark on her collarbone. He looked at it, then at the notebook that always lay on the nightstand, comparing the two. The fog over his panic cleared, replaced by shame and a helpless grief that made her turn away.

Im sorry, he whispered. Im sorry

No need to apologize, she interrupted, still not meeting his eyes just just lie down. Everythings fine.

She rose, went to make coffee. Her hands trembled. It wasnt fine; it was a new levelworse than forgetting the way home, worse than forgetting her face, worse than forgetting the love of his life. Their ceasefire, their tender evenings, were not a remission; they were merely a pause in a long, descending spiral.

When she returned with two mugs, he was perched on the edge of the bed, scribbling furiously in the notebook.

What are you writing? she asked, setting the coffee down.

He showed her the hurried lines:

Morning. Woke up. Panicked. Saw the star on her collarbone. Recognised. Its Emily. Mine. Beloved. Remember at any cost.

He hadnt written wife; he wrote beloved.

Emily took a sip of the scalding coffee, trying to push the lump in her throat down. Tears were useless. Anger was useless.

All that remained were his desperate notes and her silent presence beside him.

She sat closer, her shoulder pressed against his.

The coffee will cool, she said simply.

He, still pale and trembling, nodded and lifted his own mug. Their fingers intertwined, searching for warmth, for a tether to reality.

Ahead lay many more morningsnumerous losses, both small and large. Perhaps the notebook would soon cease to help Ian. Perhaps Max would grow up remembering a father who faded gradually into the background. Perhaps Emily would not bear the weight forever.

But in that moment, bathed in the morning light falling on the crooked lines of the notebook, they were together. Not in a past that slipped away, nor in a future that frightened them, but in the presentfragile, broken, imperfect. The only thing left, and the most precious thing of all.