“Do you?”
“The article said increased risk.”
“Risk is not certainty.”
“I know what risk means.”
His voice sharpened.
“I read about people losing executive function years later. Personality changes. Early dementia. Residential care.”
He turned his face toward my stomach.
“What if this isn’t the worst part?”
I continued touching his hair.
“Then we deal with what comes.”
“That answer is getting old.”
“It remains true.”
“You cannot deal with me forgetting you again.”
My hand stopped.
There it was.
The center of the fear.
Noah pushed himself upright despite the headache.
Tears stood in his eye.
“You can’t.”
“I already did.”
“And it destroyed you.”
“I survived.”
“I saw you.”
His voice broke.
“In the hospital. Every time I asked who you were. You looked like someone had reached inside and turned off the lights.”
I could not deny it.
“What if it happens when we’re fifty?” he asked. “What if I lose six years again? Twenty? What if I become angry or violent or don’t know where I am?”
“You are building a future out of worst-case articles.”
“They’re medical articles.”
“Written about populations, not prophecies for you.”
