I dropped my coffee.
It struck the kitchen table, spilled across the wood, and dripped onto the floor.
I didn't move.
“What do you mean, you don't know where you are?”
“I was driving to the Henderson job. I was driving, and then I looked up, and everything was wrong.”
His breathing grew faster.
“I don't recognize the road, Lee. I pulled into a gas station. I've been sitting here, but I don't know how long.”
I forced myself to breathe.
“Okay, honey. Look around. Can you see a sign?”
“There's a Kwik Fill. And a Dairy Queen across the road.”
“Can you see a road sign?”
A pause.
“Route 9 North.”
My blood ran cold.
Route 9 North led to Loon Lake.
The Henderson construction site was ten minutes from our house in the opposite direction. Mark had been driving there every morning for three weeks.
This morning, he had turned the wrong way and driven north for nearly two hours.
Toward the lake.
Toward the place where he'd fallen in love with me.
“Listen carefully,” I said. “Lock your doors. Stay inside the truck. Don't drive anywhere. I'm coming to get you.”
“Lee?”
“I'm here.”
“I'm scared.”
His voice broke on the last word.
I grabbed my keys, my purse, and a jacket, then ran outside in my slippers.
I kept him on the phone during the entire drive.
I talked about Sophie's anatomy class. The neighbors' barking dog. The bathroom we'd been planning to repaint. Anything that might keep him calm.
Every few minutes, I asked if he was still there.
“Still here,” he'd whisper.
About halfway there, his voice steadied.
“Lee, I think I know where I am now.”
“That's good, honey. But you stay where you are.”
“I could probably drive home.”
“No.”
He fell silent.
Then he asked the question I had been dreading.
“You found the folder, didn't you?”
I gripped the steering wheel.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“The ring mark. The receipt. Room 12. Carol.”
A broken laugh escaped me.
“I thought you were having an affair, Mark.”
“Oh, Lee.”
“I went through your bag in the middle of the night. I thought you'd bought another woman a ring and taken her to our honeymoon hotel.”
He didn't answer for a long time.
“I'm sorry,” he finally whispered. “I should have told you.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice shaking. “You should have.”
When I reached the gas station, I saw his truck parked near pump four.
Mark sat inside with both hands resting on the steering wheel.
For one awful second, I was afraid he wouldn't recognize me.
Then he looked up.
His face crumpled.
He unlocked the door, climbed out, and wrapped his arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe.
“I'm sorry,” he kept repeating. “I'm so sorry.”
I held him.
“Stop apologizing.”
“I should have told you about the diagnosis.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“I didn't want you to watch me every time I forgot something. I didn't want you to look at me differently.”
I pulled back and looked into his eyes.
“What look?”
He gestured toward my face.
“That look.”
I understood then.
He was terrified of becoming a burden. Terrified that I would stop seeing my husband and start seeing a patient.
“Mark,” I whispered, “this is my face because you got lost and I was afraid I wouldn't find you. That's all.”
He shook his head.
“I don't know what happens next.”
“Neither do I.”
“What if I forget you?”
I pressed my forehead against his.
“Then we'll figure it out when we get there.”
He began to cry again.
I held him until his breathing slowed, until the man who had been lost on a familiar road could stand beside me and feel, for a moment, that he had found his way home.
I called Dave to collect Mark's truck. He didn't ask questions.
“I'll get it, Lena,” he said. “Don't worry about anything.”
That was when I understood that his friends had known about the diagnosis.
On the drive home, Mark stared at his hands.
“How long have they known?” I asked.
“Since June.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
He flinched.
“I needed their help with the trip. With the ring. With the hotel. I thought if I could give you one more beautiful memory before things got worse, maybe—”
He stopped.
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe you'd have something to hold onto.”
I felt anger rising beneath the grief.
“You don't get to decide what I can handle.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe you were cheating. You lied about the dentist. You let me tease you about forgetting things.”
“I know, Lee.”
“I am furious with you.”
He nodded.
“I understand.”
“And I'm staying.”
He turned toward me.
“What?”
“I'm staying, Mark. Through every appointment, every bad day, every time you forget something. But you don't get to shut me out again. Not like this.”
He reached over and rested his hand on my knee.
The same gesture he'd made countless times during our younger years, when we'd driven with the windows down and the future seemed endless.
I placed my hand over his.
His ring finger was bare now, except for the pale band left by the practice ring.
I didn't yet know how much that little circle would come to mean to me.
But I knew one thing.
We would face what came next together.
And before the month was over, Mark intended to ask me to marry him all over again.