Randy gets Jonathan to leave without much incident, although his squealing tires earn us some glares from other visitors at the Pine Acres Care Facility. I can’t bear to look at Pamela; she’s sobbing into her cardigan, balling it up in her hands. “It’s wrong,” she tells me, just before Randy escorts her to the car. “You should be ashamed.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but I can tell, from the look on his face, that Randy still understands where I’m coming from—kind of. I give him a nod as they leave.

Finally, it’s time to face Breton.

“So,” she whispers, tears rolling down to her chin, “you’re married.”

I glance at her roommate. “Can we talk in private?”

Colby looks at Breton, not me. “Do you want me to wait in the car?”

“I don’t know.” She sniffs, studying the crooked, faded lines of the lot. “I guess so.”

We go inside. There’s no one else in the visitor’s waiting area, so we sit in the armchairs near the window. I offer her coffee, but she refuses.

“Just get it over with,” she blurts. Her eyes pierce right through mine when she lifts her head. “I already know, okay? I just...need to hear you say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you’re married. That you lied to me, and you don’t love me, and we can’t be together—”

“Whoa, whoa, Breton.” I hold up my palms. “Please, let me explain.”

She looks at my hand. My wedding ring. “What’s there to explain?”

I close my eyes a minute and breathe. “Okay,” I say, “yes. I’m married, when you get right down to it. And I’m…I’m sorry.”

This isn’t enough, of course, but she straightens her shoulders and swallows hard, listening.

“I shouldn’t have lied to you. And at first, I didn’t. I told you she was gone, kind of a half-truth, because I was worried you’d react...” I force out a laugh. “Well, like this, actually.”

“You did lie, though,” she reiterates, “when you told me she was dead. I asked you straight up, and you lied to me, Teague.” She shakes her head, face tense again as she tries to tame her crying. “How can I trust anything you say?”

This hurts, but it’s true. Why should she trust me?

I get up. “Come with me,” I tell her, holding out my hand. She doesn’t take it, but stands and follows me, just the same.

The room is warm and disturbingly quiet; somewhere, there’s a TV on mute, the electronic buzz fizzling against my ears.

“Jennifer?” he calls. He’s practically shouting, but his tone is gentle. There’s a lilt to it I’ve never heard.

It’s only then that I notice the hunched, shivering figure in the chair by the bed. A woman.

“Jennifer,” Teague says, stressing every syllable, “this is Breton. Breton...this is Jennifer.”

I can’t stop staring. The woman is frail, shaky, and her hands turn towards her wrists, like she can’t stand to touch anything around her. She looks at me without appearing to actually see me.

“Teague,” I manage, “what’s going on?”

He takes Jennifer’s hand and uncurls her fingers, clicking his ring against hers. “Jennifer has early-onset dementia,” he says. He won’t make eye contact yet. “She doesn’t know what’s going on, she can’t talk...she doesn’t even remember who I am, at this point.”

My brain physically hurts as, finally, things begin to make sense. I have to sit on the edge of the bed, before I fall over. “How long has she been....”

“Five years since the diagnosis, but three that it’s been like this,” he says, letting go of her hand. He drapes a crocheted blanket across her, and she goes back to staring at the ceiling. I notice a belt across her lap and chest; she’s secured to the chair so she won’t fall out, like a baby.

“We got married when we were twenty-five,” he says, “and for a couple years, everything was great. Perfect, really.” He shows me a photo on the table beside her chair.

In it, Teague is young and clean-shaven, laughing. Jennifer looks completely different from the woman in front of me. The one I’m looking at has thin hair, cut short into a pixie; distant, dull eyes, the color of dirty pool water; and a slack mouth that moves, but makes no sound. The woman in the photo is young and gorgeous, the epitome of a new bride. They sit on a boat adrift on bright, clear blue water, fully clothed but dripping wet. I recognize the hill of white buildings behind them: Greece.

“It started with memory loss. Normal stuff, like misplacing her keys,” he continues. “She figured it was stress from work, or whatever.” When I hand the photo back to him, he replaces it without looking at it. Like he can’t bear to see the differences.

“Then it got dangerous. Forgetting which side of the road to drive on, or walking the neighborhood in the middle of the night. By the time the doctors figured it out...I couldn’t take care of her by myself.” Teague’s voice catches. “I tried to, though. I tried for a really long time.”

His Adam’s apple bobs; he’s close to tears. I want to go over to the window and hold him, but it feels strange to do so in front of Jennifer, even if she’s completely unaware of it.

He looks at Jennifer again, leaning down to kiss her hand. She doesn’t even blink. No recognition, no reaction.

We go out to the pond behind the facility. Caregivers and family members push their loved ones, most of them elderly, in wheelchairs on the concrete paths. A lot of them have the same vacant face as Jennifer, but it’s less troubling to see on someone in his eighties than on a girl in her thirties.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Breton.” He gives a sad kind of smile and runs his hand across his face. “I wasn’t expecting you to come into my life. I didn’t expect to fall in love again at all. When it happened...I didn’t know what to say. I was so scared I’d lose you.”

I start to assure him I wouldn’t have left, but stop myself. If he had told me, when we first met, before we had so much more at stake—before I loved him—would I have stayed?

He leads me to a concrete bench overlooking the water. It’s sparkling in the sunlight, a chilly wind whipping off the surface.

“When she got diagnosed,” he says, “I tried...well, ‘fixing’ it, I guess. Slowing it down. We changed our diet completely, I got her all these specialists....” He starts to cry, finally, unable to hold back. I rub his shoulders when he doubles over, resting his head in his hands, elbows on his knees.

“You couldn’t stop it,” I assure him. “My grandma….”

I let my voice fade. There’s no possible way I can relate to the hell he’s gone through. My grandmother was eighty-five when her dementia settled in, and there wasn’t any long, terrible battle. We were sad, of course, but at least we could take solace in the fact she’d lived a long and happy life, first. Jennifer never had that chance.

Still, I feel like I have to say something, anything, to show him I’m at least trying to understand his pain. “My grandma had dementia, too,” I finish, finally. “It takes hold so fast. It sounds like you did everything you could.”

“I know.” He talks to the ground, his breathing deep and shuddering. “That was the worst part of it. We both tried so hard, and it didn’t matter. It was totally out of our control.” He lifts his head, hands tented in front of his mouth as he stares at the pond.

“I’m so sorry, Breton. I should have told you everything when you asked, but...I convinced myself I wasn’t lying.” Teague touches the ring on his finger. “Because she is dead, in a way. The woman I married and loved is gone.”

I wish there was something I could say to make this better for him, but there isn’t. Except, maybe, “I forgive you.” When I say it, I know I’m not fully there yet—but I’m on my way. His smile and thanks make me glad I said it, regardless.

“So, that Jonathan guy—Jennifer’s brother—is he the one who punched you?”

He nods.

“He, uh…doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

“That’s an understatement,” he sighs, pulling a cigarette pack from his pocket. It’s empty. He stares into it while he speaks. “When she got diagnosed, she told me she didn’t want to be resuscitated if anything happened, which I plan to honor whenever...you know, the time comes. Jonathan’s pissed and says I should do whatever needs to be done to keep her alive. Her parents said the same thing too. Until today, actually. Legally, it’s my call, but...it meant a lot to me, having them on board.

“No one was happy I accepted a job out of state last year, either, but I needed to do it. I couldn’t move on if I was here, just waiting for her to die, when she’s already gone. I think her parents are starting to understand, though. Her dad does, at least.”

I don’t know if my next question is in bad taste, but I feel the need to ask, anyway. “Did you and Jennifer...you know, have...intimacy, like you and me?”

He chuckles under his breath. “Are you asking if I was a married virgin? Because, no. Definitely not. If you’re asking if we...did things the way you and I do, with the toys and commands and stuff, that’s different.”

“The second thing. That’s what I was asking.”

“A little.” His ears are red; I’ve embarrassed him. “She was a bit more...traditional, I guess. And I was, too, when we were together.” He shrugs. “Before I met her, I dated girls who were more into it than she was. I didn’t mind toning it down, for her.”

He gives me a reassuring smile. “To have both, though—someone who doesn’t want it toned down, and someone I’m in love with—that never happened, until I met you.”

My final question sits barbed in my throat, eager to catch the air, but inextricably snagged. I force it loose: “Do you still love her?”

“In a way.” He reaches for my hand on the bench, lacing our fingers together before his answer has a chance to register, to hurt. “I always will. But she doesn’t exist anymore. That person in there is a shell—one I still care about, a lot…but only because of who she used to be.”

My anger and jealousy from the last week start to evaporate. Instead, I just feel an overwhelming sadness: for Jennifer, for her family, for Teague. That she got sick in the first place, but mostly that she’s not yet gone but no longer here, hovering at some place in between, everyone’s suffering prolonged indefinitely.

I still wish he’d told me the truth from the start, but at least now I understand why he didn’t: he wanted to forget and be done with it all, to just move on and live his life again.

I squeeze his fingers. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Teague.”

He thanks me again. “I’m sorry you got pulled into it. That I pulled you into it. I shouldn’t have let anything happen between us in the first place, but especially when my life is like this. God, it’s...it’s such a fucking mess.”

When he leans against me, I run my fingers through his hair and try to soothe him, even though I’m crying, too.

“I’m glad you pulled me in,” I tell him. The wind hits his back and skates up to my eyes, turning the tears cold before they can fall.