I pulled one down. “Who is she?”

Henry stood behind me. “I asked you not to come in.”

“Who is this woman?”

He swallowed. “I paint to hold on to time.”

I walked out shaking.

Days later, I saw him take cash from the safe and leave in his good jacket. I followed him. He went to a private neurology clinic.

From the hallway I heard the doctor say, “Her condition is progressing faster than expected.”

“How much time?” Henry asked.

“Three to five years before serious decline.”

“And after that?”

“She may not recognize her children. Possibly not you.”

They were talking about me.

The doctor mentioned projected years: early memory loss, difficulty recognizing faces, advanced stages. The same years written on the paintings.

Henry had been painting me in advance—preserving who I was before I forgot.

I walked in. “So I’m the woman on the walls?”

He looked broken. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

He’d known for five years: early Alzheimer’s.

I thought of recent moments—forgetting why I entered a room, struggling with a familiar recipe, blanking on a grandchild’s name.

“You’ve been preparing for the day I forget you,” I said.

“If you forget me,” he replied, “I’ll remember for both of us.”

That night he showed me the paintings. Our first meeting. Our wedding. The birth of our children. Then the future ones—me confused, distant.

On one canvas dated 2032 he’d written: