before I go to sleep08

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‘Is every day like this?’ I say. He puts a piece of toast on a plate, smears butter on it. ‘Pretty much,’ he says. ‘You want some?’ I shake my head and he takes a bite. 

‘You seem to be able to retain information while you’re awake,’ he says. ‘But then, when you sleep, most of it goes. Is your coffee OK?’

I tell him it’s fine, and he takes the book from my hands. ‘This is a sort of scrapbook,’ he says, opening it. 

‘We had a fire a few years ago so we lost a lot of the old photos and things, but there are still a few bits and pieces in here.’ 

He points to the first page. ‘This is your degree certificate,’ he says. ‘And here’s a photo of you on your graduation day.’ 

I look at where he points; I am smiling, squinting into the sun, wearing a black gown and a felt hat with a gold tassel. 

Just behind me stands a man in a suit and tie, his head turned away from the camera. ‘That’s you?’ I say.

He smiles. ‘No. I didn’t graduate at the same time as you. I was still studying then. Chemistry.’I look up at him. ‘When did we get married?’ I say.

He turns to face me, taking my hand between his. I am surprised by the roughness of his skin, used, I suppose, to the softness of youth. 

‘The year after you got your Ph.D. We’d been dating for a few years by then, but you- we- we both wanted to wait until your studies were out of the way.’

That makes sense, I think, though it feels oddly practical of me. I wonder if I had been keen to marry him at all.

As if reading my mind he says, ‘We were very much in love,’ and then adds, ‘we still are.’I can think of nothing to say. I smile. 

He takes a swig of his coffee before looking back at the book in his lap. He turns over some more pages.