Author's notes: This story consists of scenes I added throughtout the movie, as well as expanding the ending. Not everything in this movie makes chronological sense, or can be easily explained, but I recently watched this movie and it has become a favorite. Hope you like my extrapolations.
"Gus, what's wrong?" Lucy asked, breathlessly worried, knowing a call from her brother at this time of day was highly unusual. Almost every day, he called her in the morning, after he had read his daily briefing that explained it all. Late afternoon meant something was wrong. His incoherent and hysterical babbling in response did nothing to allay her fears.
"It's gone….it's gone….everything...it's gone," she heard, hearing the uneven tremor as he fought to tell her something, anything to explain.
"What's gone, Gus?" she asked steadily, knowing dealing with him calmly was the only way.
"Oh my God, Oh my God...you don't...understand….lost," he stammered, his voice wavering in between sounding close to the phone and shouted from far away.
"I'm coming there right now, Gus, ok? I'll be right there," she insisted, forcing herself to hang up, knowing as much as she wanted to stay in contact with him, she needed to just go there.
She grabbed her keys and her sweatshirt, then her purse, dialing Jerry once she was in the hallway. He was lots of things, she thought with a sigh, but first, he was Gus' best friend. And, from the sound of Gus, she was going to need help.
The moment she opened the door to his apartment building, she saw Bernadette, Gus' upstairs neighbor, wiping tears from her eyes as she sat on the stairs. The second she saw Lucy, she stood. "I'm so sorry, Lucy. I overflowed the bathtub and it flooded your brother's apartment. I ruined his computer," she gasped, covering her mouth. "I'll pay for whatever damage I did, I swear. He's...he's…"
Bernadette didn't need to finish, or try to put words to explain what Gus was experiencing. Lucy could hear him, down a flight of stairs, his anguish echoing down the stairwell through his open door.
Lucy let herself feel his heartbreak, inside herself, away from him. In front of him, she could only show strength. He had been so independent before, and his need for her now was absolute. She couldn't make it worse by showing him, ever, that she could submerge in his tragedy just as easily in his desperation, feel just as angry and cheated. "It was an accident," she assured the larger woman. "Really, please don't worry about it."
"He's…" She still couldn't frame the thought or the words.
"What he lost can't be replaced. It's not your fault, though. It has nothing to do with you," Lucy said with a sad resignation. "The only consolation you have is he won't remember this happened tomorrow."
Bernadette's eyes were wide, and sad, as she fully understood. Calling to Lucy as she passed her on the stairs, she said, "His computer was how he managed, wasn't it? How he was able to live by himself?"
Lucy nodded sadly, hating the image the truth painted in her mind-her genius older brother, so disabled and helpless. She rushed up the stairs, as the wrenching sound of his sobbing loudened. When she got to his door, she saw the water creeping out through the door into the hallway. She smelled something acrid, burnt electronics. Through the cracked door she could see the hole in the ceiling where the plaster had fallen, looking down to see his desktop littered with debris, a slow dripping trail of water still pattering onto the carpet.
He didn't look up when she called his name, seated on his sofa, his knees pulled up against his chest and his head bent down onto them. He was keening, rocking back and forth ever so slightly, moaning and weeping to himself. In front of him on the coffee table was his fried computer.
Completely destroyed. Every day of his life for the last three years. She had warned him about making sure he had back ups, but if he hadn't remembered to record it, he wouldn't have been able to add it to his to do list. After the initial shock of his ruined life had settled in, the next thing he had to contend with was her caretaking-her mothering of him, since she was all he had left in terms of family of any kind. His reduction to in essence, a helpless child, had infuriated him. She had learned to tell him things once, and leave him to his devices. He had to learn to live again, and the doctor had told her she needed to let go, as hard as that was. She stayed out of his life as much as she could while still being there when he needed her. It was a delicate balance, but after all this time she thought she had it down to a good system. She wondered if he in fact had a backup, but didn't remember that he did. She reminded herself to check, later, just in case.
She called his name again, louder. "It's gone...ruined...I can't…." he responded.
Rage seemed to erupt like a volcano. He came alive, grabbed the computer and threw it hard against the wall until it shattered into pieces. "We'll have to get another one," she spoke calmly, trying to reassure him. "For now you have your pen—"
From the fit of rage already holding him, he dissolved in front of her eyes. "No, I don't! It's ruined." Molly had smashed it, he knew, from the long handwritten note he had left for himself after he had been unable to download the day from it the night before. Explaining that to his sister was beyond his current capabilities.
"Well, then, we'll replace that too—"
"Don't you get it?" He screamed. "I called Molly today and she...she hung up and told me to not call her again. I put everything in that computer! Every minute we ever spent together. She found the pen and...and…"
"You didn't tell her yet? I thought you—"
"I know I tried...but…I guess she didn't understand...or I didn't explain it the right way...I was just too afraid to tell her straight out." He grabbed his head in his hands, screaming. "It's all broken and ruined and tomorrow I'm going to wake up and it's all going to disappear and I can't do anything about it now…"
In her head, Lucy thought if Molly had left him in a fit of rage, and disavowed him today, there was little left he could do to repair the damage, despite his thoughts. It was almost better in this circumstance to forget her, forget how she had started to make him feel.
Lucy heard Jerry's footfalls behind her. "What the hell happened?" he asked incredulously, looking between the ceiling and the couch.
Gus seemed completely unaware that his friend was even there. Hysterical, he started wailing, "I can't live like this! I can't! I should have just died...why didn't they just let me die? It would have been so much better. Why...why...why?" He pounded against his forehead with his clenched fists.
"Gus, I almost lost my brother. But I didn't. You lived. It was a miracle that you survived," she insisted, watching Jerry put a hand on his hip and turn, obviously feeling the same, but never one to let it show.
"What kind of miracle is this?" he shouted. "Reliving the worst thing that ever happened to me every single day! It's not fair, it's not…" He lost his composure, weeping again.
No, it wasn't fair. She knew this very well. But the time and effort it took to keep him functioning was Herculean, so fretting about the unfairness of it was something she had stopped wasting her time on long ago.
Lucy tried to hold him, offering comfort, but he railed against her, fighting her with his fists in futile, helpless, misdirected anger. "Jerry, this is bad," she whispered gravely. "Call 911," she insisted.
Jerry's ice blue eyes grew enormous, as he began to realize the scope of the situation. Lucy had told him about this, but he had been fortunate to have never had to witness it. Until right now. Last night had been close, but last night he had been despondent, defeated, not this hysterical angry person. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed, walking away slightly so he could be heard over Gus' voice.
"No! No!" He screamed, pulling himself over the side of the couch to get away from her.
"Jerry, grab the midazolam out of the top drawer of his dresser," she ordered firmly, yet quietly so Gus couldn't hear her, a deep resignation in her voice. It was a last resort, left over from the very early days of bringing him home, while he was still recovering and had issues with his balance, his speech, even his personality, all damaged in the trauma the bleeding in his brain had caused. True, he had never had such a catastrophic failure of his system, but Lucy knew it had more to do with Molly than she wished it did.
Lucy held onto him, gripping him tightly around the waist, closing her eyes hard against the tears that threatened. Tranquilizing him was immediate erasure of everything that was left, but also everything he was currently grieving, something she could do nothing about. His life was a tragedy, but sometimes she still envied his ability to forget all the things that could possibly hurt him.
It had been a very long time since Gus had been this bad, but Lucy had shown Jerry what to do in case of emergencies, so Jerry flipped off the cap and injected the needle into Gus' thigh, wincing as he heard his friend cry out in pain. Lucy felt him go limp almost immediately, but it took almost a minute before he was actually asleep. He fought against the drowsiness, but the drug took over soon enough.
"The ambulance should be here soon," Jerry said, as much to break the awkward silence as to relay information. "Wait a minute. Why is he home? His shift only ended ten minutes ago…"
Lucy threw up her hands in frustration, thinking Gus probably knew, or it was possibly recorded on his computer. Either way, the information was gone. He was asleep, the day canceled out completely. "I'm going to call Dr Felton. Have him meet us at the ER. It will save a lot of hassle and repeated explanations," she said.
"I just saw Gus late last night. He was down, but, I didn't think—"
"Wait, what? Why? What happened?" She asked.
"He didn't tell Molly the truth. She found out the wrong way. And she left. He ended up wandering around in the pouring rain for an hour before he called me. He said it was over. With Molly," Jerry said. He sighed heavily as he saw the shattered computer. Lucy's eyes drifted through his bathroom door, noticing the photo taped to his mirror was gone. He had already given up, then, to be dealt this final blow the very next day.
From behind her, she heard Jerry say, "He asked me if it was possible to fall in love with someone every day...He was so down, but, I. Well, I think he did. That he could. This girl, anyway. At least before all this."
He remembered jogging next to Gus, listening to him talk about Molly. He had inferred by his own unremembered diligence to record everything about her in his morning file, his first line of defense to face each day as a blank slate, that she had meant something to him. He had told Jerry that he thought he loved her. Jerry had been literally stopped in his tracks, amazed that it could be true then, that he started every day not knowing her and falling asleep in love with her.
"If he didn't, why be so upset? It seems crazy, but he was acting very brokenhearted."
Ever the one for practicality rather than romantic notions, she ignored the thought and added, "He can't function here like this. It has to be fixed first. Dr. Felton can approve his stay in the hospital," she said evenly. Her face fell only for a second. "I hated doing that, Jerry. It's been years since…"
"I know," he said, stopping as he heard the blare of the ambulance as it approached. "Are they going to…" Jerry's voice trailed away, not wanting to think about what potentially awaited his friend.
"No," she said. "Dr. Felton knows what to do," she said, in part to calm her own mind and assuage her own guilt.
}RS{
After the long conversation Molly had just had with Gus' sister, Lucy, she felt at last that everything fit into place. It wasn't necessarily comforting, but at least now it all made sense. She actually could count how many different times he'd tried to tell her himself—at least five that she knew of. Why had it been so difficult?
She felt awful that she may have made it more difficult, especially the last time. God, she broke something he needed to use to get by every day. Even walking out of Gus' apartment now alone, she felt her cheeks reddening in shame.
She knew what she needed to do, where she needed to go. Jolene thought she was still home packing, as she had found Gus' notebook and knew she had to return it. It was only right.
She couldn't remember Jolene's schedule, so she called and left a lengthy message on her cellphone, explaining why and when she was going back to pack.
She was alone in Jolene's apartment when she heard her roommate come through the door. The staccato rhythm of her high heels on the floor keyed Molly into her current mood.
Starting an argument was the last thing she needed right now, but Molly found she couldn't avoid it. All the new information in her mind made it difficult for her to focus that much on arguing, and that seemed to irritate Jolene more.
"I thought you were done with that creep! Molly, what are you doing?" Jolene castigated her as she continued packing up her room, after telling her roommate that her packing had to be delayed because Gus had been hospitalized.
"Don't you dare say that about him, Jolene. You don't understand!" Molly yelled.
"Understand? He was recording your conversations! How much more do you-"
"He had an aneurysm!" Molly shouted back, stopping what she was doing.
It was strangely satisfying, at last seeing contrition on the face of her cynical friend. "What?" was all she could say.
"Three years ago. And he has no short term memory anymore. He kept trying to tell me. He was afraid I would leave!" she said, realizing the truth of what she was saying at the same time she was explaining it, surprised at the sharp pain that thought instilled.
"No short term memory? How is that even possible?" Jolene asked.
"That's why he thought you were me, why he didn't recognize your voice or my voice, why he missed our first date. Or why he changes watch bands for a living when he has a phD in astrophysics or cosmology or whatever. He had to relearn who I was every single day. That's why he was recording me." Her eyes teared up slightly. "But he made sure he relearned who I was every single day."
"Oh my God," Jolene said softly. "He really is just a nice guy." She looked hard at her friend. "But he's not normal. Have you thought about this? How hard this could be?"
"I love him, Jolene," she admitted, feeling her blood start to flow when she heard herself say it.
"Oh, no," Jolene scolded.
"What?" Molly asked in frustration.
"What do you mean what? You might feel that way, but he doesn't. He can't. He wakes up every day and doesn't know who you are. It might not be his fault, but as much as he might want to hold onto you, he can't. That sounds like torture to me, not a romance."
"So that's it? He has to live the rest of his life alone? He is an amazing person. He deserves better than that," she insisted.
"Do you love him? Or do you just feel sorry for him?" Jolene asked with a snide twist to her mouth.
"Jolene," she scolded, internally afraid that maybe part of what her friend had said was true.
"I feel sorry for him. That sounds like a horrible tragedy. But you don't have to take care of him because-"
"He can take care of himself," she snapped.
"That's why he's in the hospital right now. His computer broke and now he's helpless," she argued.
"Why do you always do this?" Molly hissed. "Take everything good and beat it down until it's worthless-"
"That's not what I'm doing!" she yelled. "You have this romantic notion of life, when after everything that's happened to you, you should know that life isn't like that. Things don't just magically come together. Tragedies happen and sometimes they last forever. Don't think you can save him, Molly, because you can't. His doctor can't. You most certainly can't."
Frustrated, angry, and crying helpless tears, she shot back, "You weren't there, with him. You didn't see the way he made me feel-"
In a shockingly rare turn, Jolene had tears in her eyes when she responded. "Yes, I did. That's why I told you about the message I erased. I guess I'm still trying to protect you. Because I don't see this causing anything but heartache now."
Defiant, but struggling with herself, she jutted out her chin and said, "I'm going to the hospital to tell him. How I feel. I don't care." She walked past her friend.
"Just remember, Molly, he doesn't have his computer there. He won't have any idea who you are when you walk in the door. Think about how that's going to make you feel. How that will always make you feel."
As hard as she tried, Molly couldn't shake those words as she headed out.
}RS{
Gus finished saying goodbye to his friends at the observatory, and made his way slowly down the metal stairs on his way out, back to the car where Molly was already waiting for him. It still was dreamlike, being back here after all this time. He was still amazed that Molly had done all of this for him.
The control room was empty when he emerged at the bottom of the staircase, but he sensed the lightest whiff of all too familiar perfume, musky and complex. Worse than a memory, it was a part of one of his yesterdays that were always here, in a place where he wished he could keep his today and tomorrow, not the girl who was now waiting for him in the car. His breakdown on the walkway, his initial refusal to enter, had included her-knowing she would be there, that he would have to see her again, that he would have to be surrounded by more things he had wanted and now could never have.
The memory he spoke of to Molly, his very last memory he would probably ever have, hit him in the center of his chest like an anvil. The computer screen, normal at first, then straining to see the screen, thinking he must have been overtired or having eye strain. A split second later, he saw the screen twice, realizing it was double vision, knowing nothing normal could ever cause that. He moved to stand, panicked, feeling a stab of pain shoot down his neck as he turned his head. A swirling wave of nausea overcame him, and he dropped to his knees. He meant to call for help, but once his mouth was open, the only sound that emerged was a strangled scream, as a pain he could only later describe as feeling like someone had hit him in the back of the head with an ax exploded in his brain. Then darkness that seemed eternal.
He took a deep breath, trying to find a calm center, reminding himself that although that felt like it had just happened, it was three years ago.
He braced himself, fearing he would see her. But the room was still empty. She had been here, but gone, probably avoiding him. That was better, he thought. What if she was married? Better to not know, better to not have to remember this when he woke up tomorrow. He felt his eyes sting with tears, absurdly longing for the scent of freesias, the sweet scent to banish his dour mood.
It wasn't her fault, he forced himself to acknowledge. She had a right to live the life she wanted, instead of forever reliving the same day with him over and over again. As he walked slowly through the empty room toward the door, he felt his insides fill with dread. At least he remembered loving Lauren. Maybe a Lauren that no longer existed, but he knew who she was. Molly, beautiful, sweet Molly, waiting for him….she loved him, but he would forget she ever existed the moment he fell asleep again.
How was that fair to her? It wasn't, he admitted reluctantly. He knew what he wanted, knew what he had set his phone to remind him of. Nothing had ever made so much sense before-especially something that really made no logical sense on the outside to any rational person.
Was that enough? He tried, but couldn't convince himself of that, no matter how he thought about it, or how he twisted it with logic. The only hope he had, he knew, was that love, in all his experience, wasn't ever logical either.
}RS{
Molly stood at Gus' window, watching as the last rays of daylight faded away into a dusty twilight. She could see her car, parked across the street, where she had moved it after Gus had screeched into the no parking zone as they'd returned from California, as he very rarely drove anymore. She smiled to herself, thinking of how funny he had been, driving through the streets of New Orleans like a teenager with a brand new license.
But the smile faded as she kept rehearing the words his sister had told her, when she had purposely sent Gus on an errand so they could be alone.
Her head now was full of words, images. Worries she had not thought of before, things she had been afraid to admit to herself that frightened her. Her crushed spirits, now that she knew so much better what she had been hoping for almost since she had first learned of Gus' situation, the surgery that could repair his damage, had already been done, had already failed. Back and forth in her head the thoughts swirled. She tried to tell herself it didn't matter, and then Gus' ex-fiancee's words plowed over her hope. And above all, she heard what she had promised Gus she would do-erase herself out of his life if the surgery didn't work. That was what he wanted.
Well, she knew for sure, it hadn't worked.
She had promised. And she was afraid. Looking at the words on his computer, a reminder to propose to her. A reminder he would need to read when he woke up and had no idea who she was. Her hands shook, but she couldn't resist reaching over to his computer, erasing the words. She kept looking over her shoulder, making sure he couldn't see what she was doing.
When it was erased, she breathed a sigh of relief. And was surprised at the surge of loss that seemed to hit her like a tidal wave. She was committed now, searching quickly for the things she would have to remove, trying to remember where he recorded all of the information he used to upgrade his memory every morning.
"Molly, are you ok?" he asked, walking into the room, drying his hands on a dish towel, a gentle look of concern on his face.
Afraid her melancholy would continue to show, feeling like she was falling and there was no bottom, she rushed up to him, and kissed him. The only time she had ever been this forward was the night she had mistaken his need to record her for aberrant behavior, and she knew just as well he had no memory of it at all. "I love you," she whispered against his lips.
She pulled him with her, backwards into the room, kissing him more passionately. "Molly," he said breathlessly, "I-"
"Don't talk, please. Just come with me. I know you love me, even if you don't completely remember all of it." Before he was completely aware, they were in his bedroom. She pulled at his clothes, feeling his hands reaching inside her dress from the back. Then she pulled him back onto the bed with her.
He was so hesitant, restraining himself. Of course he would feel this way, she knew. Respectful of her, he felt this was too soon, too much, compared to what he knew and what he offered her. He feels like he's taking advantage of you. The thought blazed across her brain, and gouged its way through her heart. It almost killed her when she acknowledged to herself that what she was doing was no better, was actually worse because she wasn't being honest with him.
She could have sat him down, told him the truth. That he had already had the surgery he was now uselessly hoping about because of her, and that they already knew it hadn't worked. That he had almost no hope of ever getting better. That technically would have been the right thing to do. But she knew what it would have entailed. That same sadness in his eyes when he had talked to her in the car-and then his insistence that she forget about him. She would have had to watch him slowly take all the parts of her away, crying the entire time. She rationalized acting as she was now instead. The end result was the same, but this way at least she didn't have to cause him one more moment of sadness. It was, in the end, the only thing she could truly do for him.
She tried to savor each moment, each emotion that surfaced as he touched her, each adoring look, his eyes wide with awe. The same thought kept surfacing over and over again-he didn't really love her, could never love her, at least not in the traditional way that she had always thought of as love. And yet, here, like this, she felt more loved, more cherished than she ever had in her life, and she couldn't bear the thought that she was giving this up, even if it was because she had promised him she would. This was it, she knew. He would fall asleep and this would end.
She lay still as he pulled on his shirt and his pajama bottoms, knowing from the past that he could tell so easily when she was upset. Tears threatened, and she fought desperately to hide it from him. She pulled the string to turn off the light, hoping the darkness would disguise any aberrant emotions she couldn't contain. He smiled, his wide smile visible even in the darkness, and pulled her close. "I...uh...I'm going to be really surprised when I wake up, with you here. That's why I...you know…" She felt his cheek burning against hers, knowing he was blushing in the dark.
"Don't worry. You won't upset me. I'll hand you the file," she managed to say. Her voice sounded off to her, and she wondered if he knew she was lying. She hoped not.
She held him in her arms, like she would have cradled him if he were dying, feeling each breath of his as if it were her own, feeling him slipping away from her as his breathing slowed and she slowly disappeared from his mind.
She waited until he was asleep, then crept up, quietly, afraid if she woke him, his disorientation would overwhelm her. She arranged her side of the bed, fluffing her pillow to remove the dent. By the side of the bed, she pulled her clothes on. She saw the red "Molly" folder embedded in his daily read folder, and carefully pulled it out. Going more slowly than she would have liked, she flipped through the whole file, skimming it to make sure no mention of her remained. Out in the living area, she searched quickly for what she had seen earlier. The photograph next to his computer she scooped into her bag. She opened both his to do list and his journal, and edited her name out of everything that was left.
She turned back, surveying his cozy little apartment, all the things he loved on every wall and shelf. She couldn't keep the tears from falling as she closed the door, knowing she would never be back again.
She was completely unaware of the scent of freesias she had left on his pillow, or in the air drifting faintly through the filtered dawn light.
}RS{
There was only one thing left to do, she thought, as she hurried down the stairs and out of his apartment building, running to her car so she could be alone and cry, rather than out in the open. She called Gus' best friend.
"Look, Jerry, I know you don't know me, but I need to talk to you," Molly said into the phone, hoping this complete stranger would understand.
"You said this is Molly? Gus' Molly?" he asked.
She choked on her tears, thinking how badly she wished that were so. "Yeah. Can we talk? I mean, before you talk to Gus. Or jog with him, like you normally do."
"Ok," he agreed.
"I wanted to talk to you because, well, because I know you know about me. And you have to promise me that you won't talk to him about me anymore," she said shakily.
"Why?" he asked.
"Look, it's a long story. I took him to Mount Wilson this past weekend. I sent his colleagues Gus' data for the Quintessence. It was really hard, but he went in there with me, and...and...well, I met Lauren."
"Oh." It was all he said, putting his hands on his waist, staring at the ground.
After a pause, she said, "I asked him, you know, if when he wakes up in the morning, thinking he should be there...missing all that. I thought, but I couldn't ask him, does he wake up every morning still in love with her? And then he has to read that file, realize what he lost every day like it's brand new and it never gets better because there isn't any time to heal…" She wiped at her eyes, struggling to remain calm.
"You know, I sort of asked him that once. It's more confusion than anything else. Like waking up in the middle of the night in a strange place, only he can't get his bearings. I think he must think of her...but I will tell you, he's never mentioned her name to me. Ever. Not once since he's been back in New Orleans. He's here. She's not. Whatever he feels, he knows in that same moment he thinks of her that she bailed." She couldn't help but hear the thinly veiled contempt in his voice.
Her voice cracked, but she forced the words out. "Did he...uh...did he, you know, tell her to go...or…"
"Oh, no, leaving was her idea. Or, you know, staying in California, when he went home. She thought it was for the best. Turns out it was. He didn't need that, not after everything that he had to go through."
"He...uh...asked me to erase myself from his life. I didn't know he already had that surgery and it didn't work...he made me promise. I took everything out of his apartment, erased my name, took the file away...I just need you to not bring me up. And tell his sister the same thing. I'll stay away from him. That was what he wanted."
"What about you?" he asked, hearing her crying, understanding even if just for a second what made her so special to his friend.
She fidgeted, twisting the necklace around her neck. "Will you please just promise me that?"
"Ok," he relented. Wishing he didn't have to take part in hollowing out his friend's life without his knowledge.
}RS{
She had waited, just like she said she would, at the counter in the jewelry store a few hours ago. At six o'clock, she came back through the door, smiling much more freely than he remembered from before. He knew she knew him, had no idea how, and he was more than a little curious.
"Are you ready to go?" she asked, seeing him smile, watched him readjust the strap from his bag that crossed his chest diagonally more than necessary. He was nervous, she thought.
"Yeah. Let's go," he said.
They walked together down the street, idly chit chatting about the weather. She knew what she was going to tell him would be hard, and tried to put him as at ease as she could. Eventually, she stopped, saying, "Here we are. Addie May's. Good coffee."
He stepped through the door that she held for him. The place had a quaint, friendly and homey feeling.
"Molly!" he heard, looking to see an older African American man wearing an apron walk towards her. She smiled warmly, reaching up to embrace him while Gus stood awkwardly at her side. "The flowers are perfect, just like you said. Got nothing but compliments."
"Thanks, Baptiste," Molly said affectionately.
"Is this…?" he asked, looking at her confused companion.
"Yes," she said breathlessly, making Gus wonder even more. What did this man know?
"Nice to see you, Gus," he said with a warm smile. "We only met once before, briefly. I know why you wouldn't know me."
Still ill at ease, but remembering one of his tasks for the day was to smile at strangers, he returned the smile. When he looked back at Molly, Gus could see that same strange look on her face—weepy eyes, but a beautiful smile. One of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.
"Come on," Baptiste said, leading them to a table against the wall. Molly thanked him, putting a hand to her throat as if momentarily overcome with emotion. They sat, and Molly ordered coffee for both of them. She knew he took it black.
"I'm going to just tell you a story? Ok?" she said.
"Ok," he said warily.
"You have your pen recorder on you, right? You should make sure you record what I say," she said gently.
His eyes, enormous and questioning, never left her face as he pulled it out and switched it on.
She sighed, remembering all the coaching she had given herself for this moment. Just start at the beginning. "Your name is Gustav Gillenwater, PhD. You were raised in New Orleans. You went to CalTech, got a PhD in cosmology. You worked for NASA and at the Mt Wilson Observatory."
She paused to sip her coffee. He just stared, gaping. Her voice was rough when she began, "But you had an aneurysm rupture in March of 2009 and it destroyed your ability to retain any new memories. Only people very close to you know that. I think you try your best to make sure other people don't know, because you're afraid people won't treat you the same if they know, or someone might not want to be with you if they know. But I do know."
She saw the tears streaming from his eyes, watched him cover his face with one of his hands. She grabbed a hold of the other one and held it. "Your sister Lucy and your best friend Jerry came to California to try and help. But it was really hard. Lucy decided to take you back here."
Unsure of all of his current emotions, she added, "You always remember that part. I wanted you to know that I know that part too. Being here, alone, without your old life...you just learned that all again this morning. And when you go to bed tonight, you'll forget it again. But you'll upload this conversation from your pen and remember this too. I hope."
"Molly," he managed to say. "How do you—"
She smiled, despite her tears. "So fast forward to May 28, 2013. You came in here to meet your friend. I was a waitress here then. I heard you recording yourself on your pen, talking about the flowers on your table. I recorded my voice on your pen, but didn't think I would ever see you again."
"Until I had to borrow money from my roommate and in order to pay her back I came to the jewelry store where you work to try and sell my watch. I couldn't, because it was fake, but you noticed my ring. This ring," she said, holding up her hand to show him the large, ruby adorned bobble. "I asked for $50. You gave me $200," she said in awe. "And I found out today you never even put it in circulation. You must have paid for it yourself. And I was a complete stranger to you. Back then," she stressed, knowing from his perspective, she still was, even right now.
She could see his hands shaking on his coffee cup. "Press pause," she said, shaking him from his daze. She sighed.
"I...I...don't know what to…"
"There's more. It's a lot all at once. I know," she smiled, still holding his hand. It felt comfortable, although he couldn't explain why.
"I think you tried to tell me a bunch of times what happened to you, but there were a lot of misunderstandings. I left. I came to return your notebook about the Mars rovers...your apartment was flooded and your sister was there. She told me about you. She had to have you admitted to the hospital while your computer was broken...because you can't live on your own without it. I came to see you there, and after I told you that…" she was crying again. "That I loved you."
His eyes narrowed, and he felt all the air rush out of his lungs, like he was underwater and drowning. He could feel her looking at him, but he couldn't look up from the table top. He took a deep breath, feeling the sweetness of the flowers on the table and the sweetness of her scent fill his lungs instead. When he finally had steadied himself, he looked up, surprised to see her just regarding him peacefully, no expectation, not demanding a thing from him other than his attention. It was like textbook facts, scientific data. She loved him. She was unfamiliar and at the same time comfortable, and there was no question what she said was true.
"After that, things were easier. You stopped trying to hide your problem, and you let me help you. I took you back to California and you showed me the Hooker telescope," she admitted, hearing him gasp aloud.
"I went back to California?"
"Just for a few days. But I sent your co-workers your data about the quintessence. I didn't get, you know, understand all of it, but they said you made a huge discovery about measuring dark matter. They called it the Gillenwater Effect."
He seemed to be almost choking, holding onto his chest. "I can't...I can't believe this...Really?"
"Really," she said, pulling out a folded, dog-eared copy of Scientific American, with his name on the cover. "Your sister took this copy so you wouldn't see it and wonder why. She was trying to figure out how to incorporate it into your daily file."
He took it from her, slowly turning the pages. "I'll wait," she said, clicking off his pen while he was reading. It took him only a fraction of the time it had taken her, but when he looked up his eyes were full.
"But," she started after he had collected himself, "you made me promise you something as we were leaving Mt Wilson." Now she was crying, her smile twisted to a rigid frown that creased her features. "You thought I should just forget you, because you thought me living a life with you like I was wasn't fair. You asked me to erase myself from your life."
He felt deaf, his heart pounded so his ears felt like they were ringing. "And you did, didn't you?" He asked, confused but at least now understanding.
She swiped at her eyes, trying and failing to smile. "I emptied the folder, took your file, took your picture of us, erased your to-do list and your journal. I even asked Jerry and Lucy to never mention me again."
She reached down, pulling out a red file folder with her name on it, and a framed photograph with a pressed flower inside the frame. She slid it across the table to him. She waited while he flipped through. "That's a menu for here," he said, seeing the faded paper.
"Where I met you," she said.
"Why a freesia?" he asked, tilting the picture to see outside the glare.
Now she was shocked. "You know what kind of flower that is?" she asked, thunderstruck.
"Yeah…" He tried to sound nonchalant, but the one word was full of questions.
Then she was laughing. Such a sweet, beautiful sound. "You didn't know what they were. When we met. I told you as you were leaving."
His face crunched with confusion. How could he have learned something? It didn't make sense. He kept telling himself he had this all recorded, so he could figure it out later.
"If you erased yourself, why are you here?" He asked, realizing he was hoping, something he felt he never did anymore.
Crying again, so hard this time she had to stop and start over because he couldn't understand her, she said, "I tried to tell myself I was only doing what you wanted me to. What I promised you I would do. But I had to admit to myself that I was afraid. Afraid that I was being naive, that it would get too hard and I couldn't handle it. I did it because I was afraid." She sniffled, wiping her eyes.
"But I'm here, right now, because I tried to forget you. And I can't. Every time I look up at the stars I think of you and what you said and I know that I still love you. I'll always love you, and it hurts too much to be away from you."
She still held his hand, and he focused hard on their hands, entwined on the table. She watched his bottom jaw tense, his lips taught and twisted with emotion. "I...I...don't know...I don't know what you want me to say," he forced out as his throat ached.
"Nothing. I don't want you to say anything. Just believe what I'm telling you. Because it's the truth," she said in an uneven rush.
"I do," he whispered, the sadness coming from him reaching across the table and grabbing her. "But what I must have told you before is the same thing I'll say now. I don't remember you. I'll never remember you."
"You wanted to remember me. That's why you made that file. You taught yourself every morning who I was over and over again. You were always so respectful and decent. But I know you loved me. Maybe not the way other people think of love. But I know you did."
She felt him squeeze her hand. He smiled crookedly, his teeth not showing. "I'll still only ever have today."
He had said that before. Her answer before had been not if you have me. Looking through the back side of the looking glass now, she was wiser and told him, "All any of us have is today. If you live in the now, there is nothing to worry about. Ever. Just today."
"You're...an amazing woman, Molly. A wonderful person. But I'm hoping that I told you you deserve someone who can remember you? Truly love you? What I have to offer you isn't enough," he said.
"I get to choose what's enough for me. I tried to forget you. And I can't," she said vehemently. "I don't want to. All the tomorrows that you think you've lost forever...they're inside of me. Here," she said, placing her hand over her heart.
Every time he kissed her, it was like the first time. Whenever he looked at her, every time, she noticed how he seemed to lose his place, and his breath. There were things they would never have, things that she knew she had to give up to pursue a relationship with him. But some wonderful, beautiful things that she now knew made up for all of that. She had made the choice, decided he was worth whatever this life would cost her.
He held her gaze for a long time, then gently leaned forward as she leaned towards him, relaxing as she gently kissed her lips. "Hi, Molly," he said softly.
"Hi, Gus," she whispered.