He isn’t going to remember.

Marie felt certain of this as she stood on the half-moon kitchen mat, its autumn harvest design worn to beige, and unpacked two large bags of groceries. She was upset. The light of the afternoon was fading into dusky shadow and Bill hadn’t mentioned a word - at least, not the ones she had wanted to hear.

Marie understood circumstances were different now and no one could accuse her of being impatient but today was special. It was their anniversary after all, a day Bill never used to forget. For almost sixty years, it had been as important to him as to her. Last year, in fact, he’d marked the occasion with flowers from Feinson’s and only a month ago he had recounted a story about their courtship to one of their grandsons. So, as the morning had turned to midday, she had allowed herself to hope.

Now, however, she felt foolish. Just yesterday he’d dressed in his uniform for work and asked where she’d put the keys to the Rambler. It had taken Marie a moment to grasp his meaning. Then, it had taken her another heartbreaking moment to tell Bill that both the Rambler and the base were long gone. A bullet would have been a lesser wound.

In an instant, her words had transformed her husband from a man with dignity to a dependent retiree. Worse though to Marie was seeing the truth register in his own eyes, to bear witness to Bill’s realization of his own mind’s fragility. It was why she couldn’t tell him about the anniversary today. Bill was worthy of more than being informed of the life he was gradually forgetting and Marie couldn’t inflict another reminder of what was slipping away. Instead, she had waited. For something, anything. Bill, however, said nothing. And, as Marie began to prepare dinner, the likelihood he would was dimming.

Snapping on the overhead light above, Marie placed the folded, empty brown bags into a cabinet and took stock of tonight’s ingredients alongside her collection of pots, bowls and pans. They seemed to be waiting, resting about her kitchen counter ready to be put to good use. She felt comforted by their sight; the warm patina on the pots’ copper bottoms, the once shiny steel bowls dented from overzealous stirrings by long-ago little hands. Soon, she would transform them all into a mini-assembly line complete with production schedules and timetables.

It would be good to be busy, she thought. Bustling around had always been a good remedy for her own mental ailments. Still, she couldn’t ignore her heart, which felt heavy as if laden with her whole supply of pie weights. Regardless, and with painstaking attention to detail, Marie began cleaning and chopping, boiling and baking; preparing an annual dinner whose menu - roast tenderloin with pearl onions, fresh green beans, baked Maine potatoes, blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream - had never faltered ever since her and Bill’s first year together.

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