“I thought I was just getting old.”
“You are, my love. But it’s more than that.”
I looked at my hands. “You’ve been preparing for the day I forget you.”
He knelt in front of me, holding my hands. “If you forget me… I’ll remember enough for both of us.”
“I saw you taking money.”
“I ran out of art supplies,” he admitted with a faint smile.
After a long silence, I said, “I want to see everything. All the paintings.”
That night, he took me back into the garage.
“These… are memories,” he said quietly.
He showed me one. “This is when we met. You were seventeen—with paint on your nose.”
Another. “Our wedding day.”
Another. “When our first child was born. You were exhausted… but glowing.”
We moved through the years.
Then we reached the future.
“This one is 2027.”
In it, I looked confused.
“You painted me forgetting?”
“I painted who you might become. So I can still recognize you… even if you don’t recognize yourself.”
