Alice Beck’s girlfriend had started to forget things. Where she went and what she did. Who she called and what they said.

“What do you mean you don’t remember?” Alice Beck would ask after she came home from work. Alice Beck would eat dinner and pepper her girlfriend with questions as if she were preparing her for trial. “Let’s try this one more time,” she would say in her smooth voice that was all Vaseline and vegetable oil. “Where did you go? Tell me. I promise I won’t get mad.” Alice Beck would stab the air with her fork as if she were trying to maim a monster that only she could see.

Alice Beck’s girlfriend would think, think, think. Where had she gone? It was hard to know. She knew not to say the Kwik Stop where the cashier with the Golden Oreos hair always said, Hey, have a great day, or plied her with some other come-on line. She was so stupid that she didn’t even know that the cashier at the Kwik Stop was trying to get with her, at least not until it was brought to her attention.

Alice Beck’s girlfriend would rub her chin and blurt out an answer: the park Target to get some air we needed milk it was such a nice day I didn’t go anywhere I swear I swear I swear. It didn’t matter because Alice Beck would bend her answer like a cheap spoon. Even if she told the truth, Alice Beck could make it a lie. “That’s funny, Ellen told me she saw you at the mall,” Alice Beck would say, or “We had a full quart of milk this morning. You must have been really thirsty.”

Sometimes Alice Beck’s girlfriend prayed to get caught so Alice Beck would toss her out, but she knew that would never happen.

Alice Beck’s girlfriend started to forget who she was. She needed Alice Beck to remind her. She built new versions of herself using Alice Beck’s blueprints. She grew out her hair and wore the khaki pants Alice Beck favored when they went out. She bought cotton sweaters in hues of blue so pale they made her cry. She tossed all of her red-colored clothes. Put everything scarlet, crimson, Ferrari in a big black trash bag that she placed on the curb like a sack of fire.

Alice Beck’s girlfriend learned how to thrive in uncertainty, how to live at the drop of a hat, how to walk both sides of true and not. She told herself there was a certain beauty to living life that way. The other day, she spotted a silver wolf howling from the top of an old barn. The day before, she discovered a pile of hummingbird bones when she was out doing nothing, nothing at all but taking a walk. When the wind blew, they whistled a tune — “Amazing Grace” or was it “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”? She wasn’t sure.

+++