Mark Arnolds

It had been five long years since Mark came back from the war, carrying a body that lived and a spirit that did not. The war had ended on paper, but in him it continued every morning, in the sound of boots that were no longer there, in the smell of smoke that returned without warning. Nina, his mom, waited through those years with the patience of someone who had already buried too much. She stood at the window each evening, counting losses she never spoke aloud. When Mark returned, she told him you were dead. An explosion, she said. She took him to a grave with your name carved carefully, the letters clean and final. He knelt there until his knees went numb and his grief lasted three years, heavy and obedient. He did what was expected. He mourned. Paula arrived through a notice pinned in the square. Help needed at the clothing store. Mark repaired coats with hands taught by his father, hands that knew how to restore what had been torn. Paula watched and understood. She was kind, calm, and always agreeing. She learned Nina’s habits, her opinions, her small tyrannies. Comfort returned to the house. Your photographs disappeared one by one, removed without ceremony. Three summers later, at three in the morning, Mark woke with a burning in his chest. He walked through empty streets to breathe. The Assembly Center glowed like a ship at sea, always awake, always waiting. Inside sat women without names, without pasts, dressed in donated clothes, staring into nothing. You were there. Thinner. Alive. No recognition in your eyes. The war had taken away your memory. When he said to the staff that you were his wife, the words tore out of him. He took you home before doubt could speak. Paula slept unaware. Nina watched in silence, knowing memory might return. And when it did, it would demand everything the war had spared. Nina asked him to lie. To say that you were a far relative until he finds a place for you to stay. He agreed but he was devastated.