The nurses say he talks about me when I’m not there.
Sometimes he smiles when I enter.
Sometimes he flirts.
Sometimes he asks whether I’m married.
I always answer yes.
“Lucky fellow,” he’ll say.
And I smile.
“I think so.”
But there’s one thing he has never stopped doing.
He wears his wedding ring.
Every single day.
Sometimes the nurses need to check the skin beneath it.
But Mark becomes upset if someone tries to remove it.
He presses his hand against his chest.
Shakes his head.
“No. That’s mine.”
He cannot explain why.
He doesn’t know who gave it to him.
He doesn’t remember standing on that dock and asking me to put it on his finger.
But somehow, he knows he wants to keep it.
I often remember what he said in the video.
Maybe my mind won’t remember. But perhaps my hand will.
