The neurologist said to keep a journal, so she kept a journal.
Three months later she found it in the kitchen drawer, under the takeout menus. She didn't remember putting it there. She didn't remember the journal. She sat down at the table and opened it to a random page.
Tues. Called the insurance company. Hold music was Vivaldi, which felt like a personal attack. Got transferred four times. The last person was named Deborah and she actually helped, which was so surprising I almost cried. Need to buy more coffee filters.
She laughed. Not at the words — at the voice. Someone wry and tired and specific about the right details. She turned to another page.
Sat. morning. Martin came over and we sat on the porch and didn't say anything for twenty minutes. It wasn't awkward. He brought the good bread from the place on Elm. We ate it with butter and that was the whole visit. I should write down that this was a good morning, in case I need the reminder later.
She read that last line again. In case I need the reminder later. The writer knew. The writer was already making provisions for her — for this exact moment, sitting at the kitchen table, reading a stranger's clear handwriting that was, she could see from the loops on the g's and the uncrossed t's, unmistakably her own.
She turned to the first page.
The neurologist said to keep a journal. I don't know what to write. I've never kept one. Maybe I'll just write down what happens, without trying to make it mean something. I've always been bad at that anyway — making things mean something. Martin says that's what he likes about me. He says I just say what happened and let people figure out whether it's funny.
She closed the journal and held it against her chest. Not because the words were moving, though some of them were. Because the person who wrote them was someone she would want to know. Someone she could imagine liking, at a party, if they'd been introduced.
She opened it again and started from the beginning.