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“Eli has a ballroom?” Molly asked as they wandered, feeling warm and pleasant and a little bit giddy.

A chorus of laughter from down the hall indicated that festivities had gone on without them.

“It’s a multipurpose kind of room. But yes, it can be a ballroom when required.”

“Is that required often?”

Aster shrugged like the idea of holding a ball in one’s home was worth little note. He smirked, slipping a hand around her waist. “Dance with me, wife,” he breathed into her hair.

“In an empty ballroom with no music?”

He’d already started leading them in a simple series of steps. Ones she knew without really knowing them. Like holding Jessa for the first time, some things seemed threaded into the weave of her muscles: reflex, not memory. Echoes ringing inside her head.

Nearly everything about Aster had become reflex, separate from her lack of memory.

“This is fun,” Molly admitted. “Our friends are fun.”

“I’m aware,” he said, warm laughter in his voice.

He pulled away, enough to lift an arm and guide her into a quick spin. She laughed, thinking fondly of the photo he’d shown her from Alannah and Roy’s wedding, the one now returned to its home on their fridge. When they came back together, he leaned his forehead against hers, eyes closed.

“Aster?” she whispered, her tongue loose and bold. “I think we might get through this.”

He didn’t open his eyes. “I think so too,” he said, holding her close as they burned a trail around the ballroom. “And one day when your memories return, all this will have been just a little blip in our lives. Maybe we’ll laugh about it.”

He sounded wistful, dreamy, and perhaps a touch desperate.

Maybe it was the fault of wine-softened impulse control. Or the sudden flare of dread seemingly intent on ruining a beautiful moment. But she couldn’t bear to keep potential realties about her memory from him when he was brimming with so much hope.

Her confession was more of an imperative than a choice.

“Aster,” she began. “I have to tell you something.” The word irreparable tasted like stomach acid, incinerating her insides as she forced it out.

They bid their friends farewell, making seamless excuses for their departure. It was perhaps too easy to pretend they wanted alone time for reasons far from the truth.

Evening had turned fully to night as they walked into their apartment. Molly waited just inside the door as Aster paced deep, purposeful strides from one cramped corner of the living room to the other, mouth pressed into a hard line.

He stopped, nostrils flaring through a particularly deep breath.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

Molly curled herself into a nest of knitted blankets on the sofa while Aster disappeared down the hallway. She wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. She’d expected anger, devastation, or some difficult combination of the two. Instead, Aster seemed determined.

A minute later, he emerged again carrying an armful of books. He set them down on a coffee table as Molly took in the titles running along the spines: a variety of texts all relating to memory and the brain. On the top of the stack, her discharge folder from the hospital, now covered in Post-its and scribbled notes.

Aster had been researching her condition, she realized.

When he turned to face her suddenly, he spoke with startling certainty. “I’m not giving up on you. I won’t give up until you tell me to. It’s your mind, your memories,” he said. “But I’ve been researching. I know you think I’m paranoid about the headaches and tracking your symptoms. But I can’t shake this worry we’re missing something. So, I’d like to come to your next appointment, if you’d be alright with that.”

Molly tried to smile, but she sobbed instead.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I promise I’m trying to stay positive. But it all feels a little hopeless right now.”

Aster stepped away again, taking a few huge strides into the kitchen. He returned barely a moment later, a candy from his personal stash in his hand. He held it out to her, a curious look on his face.

“Here,” he said. “Hope. This is proof it can exist even when it shouldn’t.”

She gave a watery sniff. “Because of a taffy you won’t share?”