Once, on our anniversary, she had made me drive 40 minutes because a restaurant had truffle risotto.
Two days later, I came home early and found her standing in front of the bathroom mirror.
Her shirt was pulled down off one shoulder.
She was tracing the outline of the lily-shaped mark with her finger.
She did not notice me.
The look on her face was not confusion.
It was recognition.
I stepped back before she saw me.
That night, Milo refused to sleep in our room.
He lay outside the guest room instead, watching the hallway.
I barely slept.
My mind kept trying to find normal explanations.
Maybe she is stressed or exhausted.
Or maybe she has an undiagnosed medical issue.
Or some kind of memory problem.
But every explanation of why my wife was acting differently failed.
The birthmark became my biggest concern.
The next morning, Alma left to buy groceries.
The moment her car turned out of the driveway, I went upstairs and opened her laptop.
The password had changed.
I tried our anniversary. It was wrong.
Her mother’s birthday was wrong, too.
Milo’s name was also rejected.
Then I decided to try her birthday.
I almost didn’t because one day, when we were setting up a joint social media account, I wanted to put her birthday as the password.
