In the spacious master bathroom, I run my fingers through my hair. My wavy mane is growing at a breakneck pace. I barely recognize my sunken cheeks, haunted expression, and the scar on my right temple, just above my eyebrow. But I am me. My features are mine—large brown eyes, thick lashes, full mouth, and high cheekbones. The slight indentation in my chin. But my left front tooth is chipped. How did that happen?
How did I end up here, in this spacious bathroom in a beautiful house, with such an attentive husband? Four years ago, I was a heartbroken, jilted woman whose boyfriend had just dumped her. I was renting a room in a drafty Victorian, my future unwritten. If I close my eyes, I can still hear the grating traffic, the screech of the Route 70 bus braking on the corner of 50th Street and Brooklyn Avenue. I can see my quilt bunched up on the bed, the glow of my alarm clock, and I remember my loneliness, my longing to escape the confines of city life. I can see the dim bathroom with its slightly moldy grout, chipped tile, and claw-foot tub, opening onto a view of a postage-stamp yard and surrounding houses crammed together in our Seattle neighborhood. I am almost there again—in my mind, I was there only a few weeks ago. I imagined eventually moving away from the crowds, but I did not anticipate meeting a man like Jacob—or living with him on this windswept island.
I have to remind myself that years have passed. I fell in love with him over a period of time. We came to this island after much planning and deliberation. Our relationship evolved. Nothing happened suddenly or by accident.
And yet, I still expect to hear my roommate’s laughter, to find her towel thrown on the floor, her bra hanging over the doorknob. Instead, I have this tidy bathroom all to myself. Lined up on the countertop are my lotion, toothpaste, and the bottles of diazepam, alprazolam, and zolpidem tablets. Strange to be on so many medications, when I rarely took even an aspirin for a headache. But here I am, overloaded with pills like some kind of junkie. The zolpidem, brand name Ambien, is supposed to help me sleep.
But I don’t want any more help. I finally stopped taking the pills a few days ago. Without chemicals circulating through my bloodstream, my mind is clearing.
I wash my face, which feels like an unfamiliar mask made of bone and skin. I brush my teeth and run a comb through my tangled hair. Each strand is four years older than I remember—maybe most of my hair is new, my old head of hair having gone through its life cycle of two to six years when I wasn’t looking.
How much of my body is the same as it was? White blood cells live only a few weeks, red blood cells only about four months, but brain cells last a lifetime. When neurons die, they’re never replaced. I don’t recall where I learned all this, or how—but I know I’m only a shadow of my former self, as spectral as a dream.
I can’t recall who I was in this house, or the nights I spent with Jacob in our corner bedroom overlooking the sea. I sleep in here alone now, while my husband has been exiled to the guest room. I don’t remember gazing out these windows, which run along two walls, or painting the other two walls bluish-white. They’re lined with bookshelves and a modern, mirrored dressing table. On the shelves, the books reflect my profession: Principles of Marine Biology, Introductory Oceanography, and more intriguing titles: The Soul of an Octopus, Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells. There’s a binder with a printed label on the front, Kyra Winthrop, Instructor, Intertidal Invertebrates. On the pages inside, I jotted notes for my lectures in bold strokes, unlike my writing now, which trembles across the page, shaky and insecure.
But I was once confident. My self-assurance shines out from a wedding photo on the shelf. I’m dancing with Jacob at the reception. My shimmering white gown fans out around me. I’m grinning in pure delight. Jacob looks impossibly dashing in his tailored tuxedo, his features rough-hewn. The way we gaze at each other makes my heart ache. He must be lonely, lying awake in the guest room down the hall, hoping I’ll climb into bed with him. But I need time to get to know him again. To get to know myself.
I tear my gaze from the picture and search through my dresser drawers for a comfortable pair of sweats. I don’t recognize any of my clothes, all in muted twilight colors. I pull out an unfamiliar gray cowl-necked sweater, the kind my best friend, Linny Strabeck, would wear. We often shopped in vintage boutiques together. I see her whipping a sweater off a hanger and pressing it against me. Perfect, she says in my mind. She has an eye for fashion.
If only Linny would return from Russia. She flew back to spend a week with me in the hospital before she had to return to work. I barely remember her there. I feel like I still need her support, her memories of the last few years. But she’s pursuing her passion, studying orcas in a race to protect the species. She emails me when she can get to a computer, but her brief messages pale in comparison to her presence in person. I miss her dramatic stories, her impulsive nature, and her propensity to choose my clothes.