We met on a train traveling from Milwaukee to Chicago. The Hiawatha train I was told. We fell in love instantly. At least that was what my sister said. I don't know. I can't remember. I can't remember anything about him, my husband, or of our life together. I stare at his plastic face, lifeless, secrets forever kept. He lays in the casket, this stranger. His face is unfamiliar to me. I only know what these people tell me. They tell me that we were in love, that our wedding was beautiful, that he was taken too soon. They also tell me that I must be so sad. I'm not, but I don't tell them that.

They all know I was in the car with him and that he died while I suffered a severe head injury, hence the memory loss. They all know this, yet they seem to forget. I'm only out of the hospital to attend the funeral. I told the doctors that I didn't want to go, but they insisted. They said that maybe something will job my memory. So far, nothing has. One of the nurses at the hospital added in a low mumble that going to your husband's funeral is something that a wife should do. I don't think she meant for me to hear her, but I did. I wonder if it's really me with the memory problem. Perhaps she doesn't know what's it like to suddenly wake up and not know who you are, who these people are that come to visit you every day, to find out that you were married to someone who is now dead and not have any idea who that person was or what kind of life you had with him. Maybe that's why she says things like that, forgetting that I have forgotten everything.

There is a man across the room that keeps staring at me. My sister, I still forget her name though she's told me several times, says that he was one of my husband's grad students. I'm not sure what she means but the man who greeted us is about to speak, and I do know that it's rude to talk while someone is speaking.