1 poem, 1 FICtion

By sterling waterfield

Canterbury High School

and he forgot them all

Frank had always been forgetful, ever since he hit his head during an explosion in Vietnam. “Imagine,” he would tell anyone who would listen, “I went all the way to ‘Nam for a concussion. I could have gotten that here at home, safe and sound!”

Despite his complaining, he learned to live with it, just as the doctor and his wife had said he would. He started taking notes about everything, making lists: to-dos, phone numbers, birthdays. He pestered his wife, Serena, for lists of her favorite things, jotting them down in small leather-bound notebooks that he piled on his desk. “So I don’t forget,” he’d tell her for the millionth time. “You know how forgetful I am.”

Serena supported her husband’s efforts, helping to keep his notebooks organized and pointing out details he had missed. She was the one who helped him as he attempted to recapture the memories of his life: growing up in a small American town, enlisting in the army, meeting Serena while on leave in Porto-Novo.

That last story—Serena’s favorite—went like this: on a bright day towards the end of April 1954, Frank had been walking around a Porto-Novo farmers market recommended to him by a man he had met the previous night in a bar. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, he had forgotten the man’s name.) While at the market, he spotted a woman in a red dress with a broad smile, chatting with the owner of the candle stall. Frank pretended to peruse the candles, but he couldn't stop himself from glancing at the woman. He was trying to figure out how to approach her when she walked up to him. “Let me know when you’re done staring,” she said “so I can introduce myself.” Serena made sure he included that line—she was especially proud of it.

For the next two months, Frank and Serena wandered around Porto-Novo, hand in hand, laughing and talking. When Frank was called back to duty, there was no question that Serena would wait for him. And when, after his military service had ended, Frank came back with his body intact, but his mind just a little fractured, Serena embraced her role caring for him. They were married in the little farmers market in Porto-Novo, candles burning around them.

For the next thirty-three years, they lived together happily. Frank got a job managing a restaurant, one with a happy clientele and an ocean view. And even on the days when the restaurant was full-to-bursting, Frank always came home for an hour-long lunch with his wife. He regaled her with stories about the people he had encountered that day, scribbling down the anecdotes he wanted to remember. Serena would tell him about her morning chores and her trips to the market, and he’d jot those stories down too. At the end of their lunches, she would give him a kiss, watch as he walked back down the street to the restaurant, and then return inside and carefully file away that notebook among the rest.

But then, after years of quiet, another explosion hit. “Doctor today - Serena diagnosed with cancer,” Frank wrote, his pen scraping more heavily than usual against the page. For decades, Serena had tended to him, setting out his lunch and sorting his notebooks, but now Frank became her caretaker. He took time off from the restaurant (no one objected) to drive her to doctor’s appointments and pick up prescriptions. His notebooks grew to include lists of medications, times of appointments, and phone numbers of specialists.

Serena smiled as she watched him write, nodding gently as he checked and rechecked each list to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. When she got tired, she’d ask him to read to her the story of Porto-Novo, closing her eyes as he recalled their first meeting.

Serena passed away peacefully, with her husband by her side, on June 25th, 1989. After her funeral, Frank went to his desk and read through each of the notebooks. His eyes scanned the pages of memories—memories of her. He read over his notes on her birthday (“February 3 rd”), her preferences (“Never give her anything with cauliflower. She’ll throw it back at you”), and her favorite gifts (“Likes white roses and gold jewelry”). He stared at the story of their meeting, mourning her red dress, her broad smile, her boldness in approaching him. How, he wondered, had their life together—lunches and kisses and care for each other—been reduced to words on a page?

Frank gathered up the notebooks, stacks upon stacks of leather-bound paper, dragged them into the yard, and burned them. He burned every youthful recollection, every grocery list, every birthday reminder, every memory of the woman he had loved with everything in him. He watched as they all collapsed into smoke that spiraled up into the sky. He picked up his keys from where they had fallen into the grass, and turned back towards the house.

And he forgot them all.