Then, the forgetfulness started.

One Tuesday, I left the burner on under the teakettle until the water boiled dry. The kitchen smelled of burnt metal. I sat on the linoleum floor and cried because I genuinely couldn’t remember turning the stove on in the first place.

Arthur found me there. He didn’t get mad. He just turned off the stove, knelt down, and wrapped his arms around me.

“It’s okay, Ellie,” he whispered, his voice incredibly smooth and steady. “You’ve been working too hard. Your mind is just tired.”

But it got worse. I started losing track of whole afternoons. I forgot the name of our neighbor’s daughter, a girl I had known since she was in diapers. I misplaced my car keys so many times that Arthur finally took them.

“We don’t want you getting confused on the highway, sweetheart,” he said, placing the keys in his pocket. I agreed with him. My confidence was completely shot. I felt like a shell of myself.

I stopped going to my weekly bridge games. I stopped volunteering at the library. I spent my days sitting on the sofa, staring out the window, waiting for Arthur to come home and take care of me.

He took over all our finances. He said the numbers were too stressful for my cloudy head. I signed whatever papers he put in front of me. I trusted my husband. Why wouldn’t I?

I look back now and the repetition of those months makes me sick to my stomach.

Not on Thanksgiving, when I fell asleep in my gravy plate.

Not on Christmas, when I couldn’t find the energy to unwrap the gifts from my nieces.

Not when my sister Clara begged me to go to a doctor, and Arthur calmly told her that we already had an appointment scheduled.

We didn’t. He lied to her. He kept bringing me that blue mug every morning.

“Drink up, Ellie,” he’d say, placing it on my nightstand. “It’ll help wake you up.”

The church ladies would see us at Sunday service, with Arthur holding my elbow to keep me steady as we walked down the aisle. They would whisper about how lucky I was.