Faded Name, Heavy Heart

There’s a memory I carry that I never quite know where to set down. Doesn’t seem right to tuck it away on the same shelf with the funny stories—like the time I got stuck in a folding lawn chair at a family reunion—or even the thoughtful ones, like remembering my dad’s boots lined up by the back door.

No, this one’s quieter, heavier, like an old coat you can’t bear to throw away even though the pockets are full of things you can’t explain.

Some years ago, I dated a young woman for three, maybe four weeks. Not long enough to know her well, but long enough to see the hurt behind her eyes. You know the kind—it looks like she’s smiling at you, but her soul’s standing off to the side, arms crossed, not quite ready to join in.

She was charming in that way people are when they’re trying hard to get liked. Quick to laugh. Told stories with her hands.

We went on a couple of dinner dates, took walks along Beach Front Drive, and she once tried to cook for me but forgot to turn the oven on. I didn’t mind. We sat on her back porch with cold take-out and watched the streetlight flicker while her neighbor’s dog barked at absolutely nothing.

I started to catch her in little lies—things that didn’t quite line up. She told me she worked mornings at a vet clinic, but her phone would ring at 8 a.m. with someone asking if she still wanted that “job interview.”

Another time, she claimed she had a niece in the hospital, but later called the same niece her goddaughter. I didn’t say much at first.

I told myself maybe I was misremembering, or she was. But I knew better.

One evening, after a strange story about a broken-down car that mysteriously un-broke itself overnight, I asked her straight out if she had a drug problem. She denied it, of course.

Said she didn’t even take aspirin. But when I found a used syringe cap in the glove box of her car, my gut told me everything I didn’t want to know.

I ended things the next day.

About ten days later, a mutual acquaintance told me she’d died of an overdose. Just like that. Gone.

I sat with that news for a long while. Tried to picture the woman’s face, but even that started slipping away like a fogged-up mirror.

It’s a strange thing to grieve someone you barely knew, someone who kept you at arm’s length even while lying in your arms. It’s even stranger that I can’t remember her name.

I hate that part most of all.

But I remember her laugh, the way it bounced off the wall and ceiling. I remember her telling me that clouds look sad on Sundays.

I think of her sometimes when I see folks on the street corners, holding signs, looking past the cars and into some other world. I wonder who remembers their names.

Life teaches you in quiet, uncomfortable ways. We can’t save everyone.

Sometimes, we can’t even hold on to their names. But we can remember they mattered.

At least, they did to someone—even if only for a little while.