She asked, again, “Why do we keep coming here?”
I stood still, one hand on the umbrella handle, the other clenched tightly inside my dress pocket. The path always led here, to the edge of a field that had no business being in the middle of the forest.
“To see if they’ll come back for us,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “There’s no they. You didn’t come from this field, silly. You came from the city, just like me. That’s where we met. Remember?”
“I remember,” I said, because the memories were just as clear and believable to her as real ones.
She didn’t remember the day we arrived here, when they’d cleared a section of forest and then dropped us into it, expecting us to make our own way to town. She’d been disoriented, her memories stripped clean and replaced by the memories of a woman who’d lived here her whole life. I’d had to guide her through the forest, and she’d been so scared. But the next day, she’d been nothing but smiles, at peace, fully integrated into her new life. And I hadn’t had the heart to tell her anything was off.
She didn’t remember our life before, at a place far from here. But I did. I was forced to keep my memories, when we were discharged from service. As her former commander, I was expected to remember the actions that led to us being here. As my former subordinate, she was allowed to forget, absolving her of the responsibility of knowing.
I wanted her to remember. I brought us back here on our walks, hoping something would stir in her mind. I hoped we’d be forgiven and allowed to return. But she never looked at the forest with anything but fondness for all the walks we’d taken together over the years since we arrived. And she never looked at the field with anything but mild confusion as to why I found it so important.
Her hand wrapped around mine on the umbrella handle. She smiled warmly up at me. “Forget about this place. Let’s go back and get lunch!” She held out the flower she’d picked along the path.
I took my hand out of my pocket. I unclenched my hand, took the flower and smiled back.
We were kicked out for insubordination and exiled here, where they thought it was a punishment to force us to be away from everything we knew. They were right, but they were wrong, too.
She didn’t know what we’d lost, but she knew what we’d gained. So did I. We had a good life – a different life, but a good one. It was ours. And yet…
I didn’t glance back, not this time, but I would be back again and again. As much as I liked the life we had now, I couldn’t stop being haunted by what could and should have been.
Image source: Short Story Writing Prompts
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