By the week before Christmas, she’d discover the box of childhood ornaments and decorations her grandmother passed down to her. Mice made from walnuts. Quilted hearts faded with age. Candy canes formed in clay by tiny hands that hadn’t been tiny in many years. One by one, they'd appear on the tree, nestled in with the new ornaments. Then would come the favorites from the year before because she couldn't bear to not see them out again.

  Christmas morning, they would open presents in a cacophony of festive touches.

  The new year changed over with a promise. One day. One day, we'll decorate like adults.

  November first, it started again.

  But not that November. The first had come and gone with no new inspiration. No new magazine pages pinned to walls or ideas haphazardly sketched with no discernible skill on the backs of menus and shopping lists.

  Nick had taken out all her boxes. He'd lined them up like little soldiers. He'd cut through every strip of tape and pulled out the ornaments and tinsel, candleholders, and snow globes. The only thing he left were the old boxes that had been opened dozens of times. He left her childhood where it was and instead filled their house with every whim she'd had since the fall they met.

  That was the year everything was bright pink and silver.

  Nick draped the final piece of tinsel over the bough of a Christmas tree he'd dragged out of the attic that morning and pieced back together like he was performing a resurrection ceremony. The glow from the multiple strands of lights, some white, some colored, reflected off the individual strands to make the entire tree shimmer.

  It was all there. Every piece. Every year.

  He didn't know if he was celebrating or mourning. Maybe neither. Probably both.

  He was going through the motions of what he thought he was supposed to be doing, morbidly filling the long hours left empty when the office closed, and he couldn't show up to the parking lot to decipher his coworkers. The decorations taunted him but stayed silent. Not another song. Not another movie. Not another special about Christmas.

  At least decorating kept the bitterness in his mind from forming into the shapes of the summer. He could bear the sugary idealism of decorating even if it sent tears down his cheeks. Those tears belonged to what should have been, not what already was. The summer shapes were too cruel. He didn't want to think about the days that led up to Liza leaving. They weren't anything new. He'd gone over them a thousand times, repeated them over and over, trying to find a moment when he could have changed it.

  In the handful of lines she left behind, Liza had only asked one thing of him. Not to contact her. To leave her alone and let her start living her life again. Nick couldn't honor it. He had for the first three days. But when the shock he first felt gave way to sadness and then to panic, he couldn't do it anymore. He had to find her. Even if she wouldn't come back right then, he needed to hear her voice and tell her he was still there.

  It had been six months since he'd heard her voice. No matter how much he tried to reach out to her, he hadn't heard back. She had never answered the phone. She'd never written back. He looked and found no sign of her. It was obvious this hadn't been a choice she made quickly. Compulsion hadn't taken her away. Impulse let people disappear. It took a carefully drawn plan to keep them hidden.

  Nick sat on the sofa and watched the lights shift and move. When he couldn't take it anymore, he stood and walked into the next room where the phone sat silent. He didn't know what time it was, but he picked it up anyway. He dialed number after number, listened to ring after ring after ring. Then emptiness. Another number. Another ring. Emptiness.

  With every one, the worry faded, and the anger bubbled up. When the last ring fell silent, everything crashed. Nick barely registered walking down the hall and crossing the living room. He didn't feel the broken glass beneath his feet as the ornaments shattered on the floor. He didn't hear the smash of the decorations as he swept them off the mantle and toppled the bookshelf. Only his screams resonated through the house.

  Sometimes there were words. Other times there was nothing but the guttural sound of everything inside him being torn out and cast on the floor among the broken glass and smashed ceramic.

  He ripped everything from the branches of the tree, then pulled it apart into its pieces. Flimsy metal bent in his hands and cracked against the walls as he threw them. Finally, he sensed the stinging sensation roll up from his hands along his arms. Blood pooled on his palms and rose in tiny droplets along the inside of his forearms. It smeared across his skin and onto his clothes as he continued to thrash his way through the decorations.

  When it was all destroyed, he collapsed. For the first time in six months, he really slept.

  Nick stayed deeply asleep through the night and long into the morning. It wasn't the sound of his alarm clock that finally woke him, but the piercing ring of his phone. His eyes ached as his eyelids, dry and coarse like sandpaper, slid up. The ring made a backdrop of sound as first his sliced hands and then his pierced feet pressed into the ground to lift him to standing. Taking in the aftermath of what he had done, he made his way across the room and toward the phone.

  "Hello?" he said.

  His mouth was sour and sticky, and the word felt like the creak of his jaws pulling apart.

  "Nick?"

  The buzzing in his ears made it difficult to identify the voice.

  "Hello?" he repeated, at a loss for anything else.

  "Nick? Are you there? It's Matilda."

  His mind went clear.

  "Matilda? Where is she? Where is she?"

  "Calm down. I can barely understand you. Have you been calling the house?"

  He swallowed hard, trying to force enough moisture down his throat so he could speak.

  "Yes. Where is she?"

  "Who, Nick? Where is who?"

  "Liza."

  The other end of the line went silent for several long, painful seconds.

  "What do you mean, where is Liza? Isn't she at home?"

  "No. I thought she might have gone to you. I've been trying to get in touch with her, but every time I called, no one answered."

  "Of course, no one answered. We haven't been home. Remember?"

  Nick cringed. His stomach turned. Every ounce of fury and hatred he had been feeling sizzled and sank inward into himself. Matilda, his mother-in-law. Matilda, Liza's mother. Liza's mother who worked with her father on research projects that often took them away from their home on the other side of the world and any form of communication for months at a time. They left a week before Liza did. In the chaos, he had forgotten.

  "You haven't heard from her?" Nick asked, this sick feeling getting worse.

  "Not since we said goodbye before her father and I left. Just like always. Nick, what is going on?"

  His head was spinning. How could he have forgotten his in-laws weren't in the country? All this time, he had imagined her there with them, let himself believe she was tucked away in her childhood bedroom, reconstructing her life like he had never been in it. It had been infuriating, heartbreaking, and reassuring all at the same time. If she was there, at least she was safe. Now…

  "Liza left me."

  He didn't say the words. Instead, they burst out of him like he was making a confession. The pause on the other end of the line was too long.

  "She left you?" Matilda finally said. "When?"

  "June."

  She gasped, "June? You're telling me you haven't heard from my daughter in six months, and I'm just now hearing about this?"

  "I called. I wrote. I did everything I could. I thought she just didn't want to talk to me."

  "Did you come by?"

  She said it like they lived down the block and he could swing past in the evening after work.

  "I couldn't."

  "For six months, you thought she was here ignoring you and that we were ignoring you, too, and you didn't come to see what was happening?"

  "There was never a time when I had several days to drive out there and back, and I couldn't afford the plane ticket."

  Every paycheck got divvied up the way it always had, even without her there. Three accounts. One for using. One for general saving. One for their future family. Without Liza's income, Nick picked up the slack, so the amount deposited didn't change, but that left him with little more than what he needed to get by. Her family wouldn't understand that. The burning embarrassment from her note crept up the back of his neck again.

  "What did she say to you?"

  The accusation in the question was seething. She hadn't even bothered to try to soften it. That wasn't what she was asking. What she really wanted to say was, “What did you do?”.

  Nick recounted the note, told her Liza's car was missing, clothes, her toothbrush. She'd taken the bare basics of her life and walked away from his.

  "That's not like her."

  "I know."

  "She never said anything to me about being unhappy."

  "I know."

  "Liza would want to talk. She would tell someone."

  "Matilda. I know."

  Chapter Eleven

  Patient: Mary Whitman

  Date: Friday, December 16, 1955

  Notes:

  The patient is feeling extremely anxious about the upcoming Christmas party this weekend. This will be her first time hosting company since the accident, and she is concerned about the guests. She doesn’t know what her husband has told them about her condition or how they will perceive her. She doesn’t want to offend any of them by not remembering them, especially those who have been friends of the couple for many years.

  The patient also expresses excitement at the prospect of spending time with more people, hoping this might be what it takes to restore her memory. Even as she says this, she seems questioning and unsure. She shares a memory she had when preparing food for the party. She does not refer to this as one of her visions or dreams but as a memory. She insists she clearly and distinctly remembers shopping for groceries during the Christmas season. After initial hope when sharing the memory, the patient becomes wary. This memory does not correspond with what her husband has shared with her about her past, so she does not know if she should believe it. At the same time, she does not want to question everything that comes into her mind. She worries that if she does this, she will only trust what her husband has told her, and her own memories will not return.

  Very focused on memories of her family. Does not recall her parents or her siblings. Mentions her sister and seems particularly interested in remembering her since the image she had of her makes them seem very close. Hints at having had another vision of her but does not talk about it.

  Mention of leaving the house makes her visibly uncomfortable.

  Mary

  I am awake even earlier than usual on the day of the Christmas party. Charles is still asleep when I slip out from beneath the bedspread and touch my feet to the cold floor. The shock of cold in the morning always helps to jolt my body awake, but I don’t need it today. There’s too much going through my mind for me to still feel tired. Smells from the party food I prepared yesterday still linger faintly behind the fresh, nose-tingling scent of cleanser that wipes each day away at the end of it. The refrigerator is bursting with gelatin molds, deviled eggs, dips, and a crystal bowl of sweet, creamy butterscotch pudding. The advertisement for Jell-O pudding that inspired it hangs from a magnet on the pink door. Before the guests arrive, I’ll use vibrantly red candied cherries and gingerbread cookies broken in half to decorate the top of the bowl. Butterflies aren’t particularly festive, but I couldn’t resist the idea when I saw it.

  The elaborate dessert I have planned for late in the evening will make up for the nod to spring. It would have been much easier if Charles had been able to find a box or two of Snowballs at the store, but he says they are the height of elegant holiday desserts, and every housewife is snapping them up as soon as they hit the freezer shelves. The ad I saw for them makes me believe it.

  I’ll just have to create my own. The ingredients Charles bought for me wait on the corner of the counter and in the ice box. Later today I’ll scoop perfect spheres from the vanilla ice cream and put them back in the freezer to harden. Just before my guests arrive, I’ll roll each in shredded coconut. A sprig of holly in creamy icing and a single candle nestled in each will add the finishing flourish.

  But there will be much more on the menu before the Snowballs make their appearance. Days spent scouring magazines and exploring the recipe box on the counter crafted a list that’s probably much too long. I can’t bring myself to take anything away. Tonight has to be exactly right. From the tree Charles and I decorated together to the music playing in the background to every bowl and platter of food. I want my guests to be impressed from the moment they walk into the house. This is how I’ll prove myself. If I can throw the perfect Christmas party, I will be a step closer to myself again.

  Maybe tonight will be the night. Surrounded by friends, celebrating, and laughing. Maybe this will be what I need to bring back my memories.

  While the first pot of coffee of the day brews, I go to the bathroom to get ready for the day. Just like everywhere else in the house, the window here is wavy, so anything beyond it is blurry and indistinct. There’s something different about it this morning, though. Along the bottom of the pane, the glass is opaque and white. Dressed and made up, I go to the living room and look at the windows there. They all have the same white coloration along the bottom.

  Snow.

  I close my eyes and can feel the cold on my cheeks. The flakes touch my lips, and the clean chill fills my lungs. It’s so real I want to lick my lips to gather the crystals.

  But I open my eyes, and I’m staring at the thick, rippled window, the snow nothing but a stretch of white against the pane.

  My husband’s warm, deep voice sings from the doorway to the living room. Bing Crosby fills the room again, laced with holiday-scented excitement. I look at him, and he stops, grinning at me.

  “Seems appropriate,” he says. He takes a few steps toward me, and I notice the newspaper folded under his arm. “Do you think it will stick around and we’ll have a white Christmas after all?”

  I look back at the window.

  “When was the last time I went outside?” I ask.

  “Well,” he says, the dreams of snow and breaths of peppermint gone from his voice, “I suppose that would be when you came home from the hospital after the accident.”

  I shake my head.

  “That’s not what I mean. The last time I was really outside. When I stood out in the yard and felt the snow. Or walked on the grass. Or listened to the cicadas.”

  Charles looks at me strangely.

  “Walked on the grass? I can’t honestly say I ever remember you doing such a thing. The outdoors aren’t something you have ever enjoyed.”

  The heartbeat in my chest seemed to pause, then catch up in a cascade.

  “What about the picnic?”

  His head tilted slightly to the side.

  “The picnic?”

  “You told me we met at a picnic.”

  I watch the words click like gears through his mind until they settle into place.

  “Your parents brought you. It wasn’t something you wanted to be doing. I told you, Darling, they tried very hard to help you get over this resistance you have. But it seemed all their efforts only made the situation worse. We even spent most of our courtship at your parent’s home. By the time we married, you didn’t want to leave the house at all.”

  “Then how do I have friends?” I ask.

  I don’t mean to be arguing with him, but I can’t stop the questions rushing out of me as soon as they form.

  “People you knew as a child. People I introduced you to. Neighbors who come to visit.”

  “Neighbors?”

  “Of course,” he says dismissively.

  “They haven’t come since the accident. No one has. No neighbors. No friends. Not even my family.”

  I think of all the pictures he’s shown me and try to find the faces somewhere else in my thoughts. Not one of them is real to me. I don’t know the curves of their jaw or the sounds of their voices.

  “Mary, you need to understand, what you have been through is very difficult for others. You aren’t the same person you were before the accident, and it is uncomfortable for you to not remember them.”

  “Uncomfortable for them?” I ask incredulously. “What about for me?”

  “You can’t think only about yourself,” he says, his voice dropping lower. “I have never gone away. I’ve never avoided you or turned away from you because you’ve forgotten our marriage. Other men would have gone to their secretaries long before now, but I’ve remained devoted to you because I know my wife is there somewhere. And this is what you think of me? After all I’ve done for you, how can you be so selfish?”

  My cheeks burn and tears spring to my eyes. The taste of bile washes up on the back of my tongue, and I feel like my mouth fills with dirt. Squeezing my eyes closed stops me from toppling backward, and I nod.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “You’re right. You have been here for me. I’m sorry.”

  Charles’s face softens, and he comes up to me, taking me by the shoulders, then gathering me close to him in a hug.

  “I know you are, Darling,” he whispers against my hair. “You need to trust me. I’m doing what’s best for you.”

  I nod and pull back enough from his chest to look into his face.

  “But I remember,” I tell him softly. “I remember the grass and the breeze and the snow. Not from when I was a little child. More recently than that. I have these moments when I feel like I’m just about to know something, but it disappears.”

  Charles runs his hand along the side of my face and touches a kiss to the middle of my forehead.

  “This is why I don’t want to tell you about the projects I’m working on,” he says. “It’s too hard for you to differentiate between what’s real and those stories.”