After His Betrayal, I Erase Our Past

After a rushed, half-hearted hookup in the car, James Brown, my husband, said offhand, "Honestly? In a car, it was way better with my intern than with you." The air froze solid in the cramped cabin. Before I could react, James rolled down the window, lit a cigarette, and chuckled. "She's young, after all. Her body's as soft as water, game for any position. Not stiff and dull like you." At that moment, the lingering fondness in his voice pierced straight through my heart. I stared at him, shaking all over, and asked, "How long have you been cheating on me? Why are you telling me this now?" James blew out a smoke ring. "You eat my food, spend my money. What does it matter if I tell you? You think you can leave me?" He forgot that to help him secure that investment all those years ago, I drank with clients until I hemorrhaged, three months pregnant at the time. The baby was gone, and with it, my chance to ever be a mother. I caught my haggard reflection in the car window. Outside, the wind chill plunged below freezing. Our ten years of love suddenly felt like nothing but a joke. After saying those words, James picked up his phone to reply to messages. The glow of the screen lit up his face, and the corner of his mouth was tilted up in a smile. I sat in the passenger seat, straightening my clothes. The ring and pinky fingers on my right hand had been numb for years. The nerve had been severed by that blow, and it never fully recovered after surgery. He typed, letting out a soft laugh occasionally. His phone rang. He answered it, and his voice instantly changed completely. "Just finished up with something. What do you want to eat? I'll have someone send it over. Good girl, go to bed early." Just those few words, soft and gentle, like he was cooing at a cat. I knew that tone too well. Ten years ago, he'd used the same gentle tone to soothe me when I couldn't speak, lying in the ICU. After he hung up, I stared at my own outline in the car window. Ten years ago, James wasn't "Mr. Brown" yet. We'd just started our business together, living in a tenement, and he'd rubbed a local gangster the wrong way, the one who controlled the territory. That night, four of them blocked our way in the alley. The lead guy clutched a steel pipe, and the three behind him each grabbed a brick. James pushed me behind his back and stepped forward to face them alone. The first pipe swung hard into his shoulder. He grunted and fell to his knees. The four surrounded him, kicking him as if trying to beat him to death. I threw myself over his back, and the second blow of the pipe landed on my spine. I was in the hospital for four months after that. When James signed the surgical consent form at my bedside, his hand shook so badly he could barely form the letters. The doctor told him that the nerve damage was irreversible, and my mobility and sensation in all four limbs would be reduced after the surgery. James squatted in the hospital hallway all night. When he came in the next morning, his eyes were bloodshot, but he smiled and told me, "The surgery is a complete success." He hugged me from behind, pressed his face to the bandages covering my back, didn't say a single word, but his shoulders shook nonstop. After that, my old injury flared up every winter. My spine got stiff, and I couldn't put any weight on my right hand. When he got home, he would first heat water for me to apply to my back, then press my spine one vertebra at a time, slowly working his way down. Once he finished pressing, he turned my right palm over and stared at it for a long time. "Once we make money, I'll take you to see the best doctors and get this fixed." Later, he did make money. But he never mentioned it again. James became a completely different person. He turned his life around in two years, and he married me five years ago. On our wedding day, he promised he could give me everything I ever wanted. James believed it, and I believed it too. But the man who lived in that tiny tenement, the man who once considered me his whole world, was gone forever, and I could never find him again. The car heater blew warm air on my face, but I couldn't feel any heat. James checked the time. "Let's go home." He started the car. Everything was just like normal, as if those words he'd said five minutes earlier had been idle chatter. I asked, "When did you take on that intern?" He laughed and said, "You sound just like my mother." His phone lit up again. He glanced at it but didn't reply. "Olivia, find something to do. What kind of life is this, with you poking your nose into everything all day?" Once the car pulled into our building's underground garage, the engine cut out, and a few seconds of silence followed. He didn't get out of the car. He said to me, "I'm starting a business trip tomorrow. I'm heading back to the office first, and I won't be coming home tonight." I opened the door and got out, watching him drive away until his taillights vanished around the corner. When I got home, I went to the bathroom and desperately scrubbed to get rid of the traces James had left on my body. I turned the water as hot as it would go, hot enough to redden my skin. I stayed in there a long time—long enough that the water heater began to run cold. When I finally stepped out, I changed my clothes and sat on the living room sofa. The TV was off, the lights were off. The low hum of the heating was the only sound in the apartment. My phone lit up. I picked it up and saw a notification. It was an article from a medical education account—MECT: When Memory Becomes an Illness. Was there really a treatment that could erase people's memories?