The accident was a terrifying blur of sirens and waiting rooms. But the real tragedy didn’t happen on the highway; it happened in the recovery room three days later.
When Ben opened his eyes, I sobbed with relief. I reached for his hand, whispering, “I’m here, baby. I’m here.”
He pulled his hand away, confused. “Sarah? Why are you crying? And… why do you look so old?”
The doctors explained it in clinical terms. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and lost the last 10 years of his memory.
Ten years. Our entire marriage. The house we bought. The miscarriage we survived. The trips to Italy. Gone. In his mind, it was 2016. We were just study partners who grabbed coffee sometimes. He remembered me as his friend, not his wife.
I brought him home to a house he didn’t recognize. He looked at our wedding photos on the wall with the polite interest of a museum visitor. I slept in the guest room because he felt uncomfortable sharing a bed with a “friend.”
I didn’t give up. I treated it like a romance movie. I thought if I just replayed our greatest hits, the spark would reignite. I tried to make him fall in love with me again. I cooked his favorite meals (which he didn’t know were his favorites). I took him to the spot where he proposed. I told him stories about us, hoping to jumpstart his heart even if his brain was lagging.
For twelve months, I courted my own husband. And for twelve months, he remained polite, distant, and increasingly uncomfortable.
On our anniversary, I made a candlelight dinner. I reached across the table, desperate for a sign of the man I knew.
“Ben,” I pleaded. “I know you’re in there. Please.”
He put his fork down. He didn’t look angry. He looked sad.
“After a year, he looked at me with pity,” a look that hurt worse than hatred.
“Sarah,” he said softly. “‘I see how much you love me, but I don’t feel it.’“.
He gestured to the life around us—the life we had built. “I know I’m supposed to be this guy. But I’m not him. ‘You’re a stranger.’“.
I realized then that the movie was over, and there was no happy ending. You can’t force a connection that isn’t there, even if it used to be the strongest thing in the world.
We divorced because the man I married ceased to exist, even though he was sitting right there. I signed the papers across from a man who looked exactly like the love of my life, but who was actually just a college friend who felt bad for the weeping woman sitting across from him.
