Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel

Ch. 1

1 IT’S SAFE TO SAY your relationship is finished if the only way you can imagine solving your problems is by borrowing a time machine. Snow was falling on Avenue B, and for months my thoughts had been growing darker each day. I’d been going back and forth on whether to break up with Taylor, my partner of fifteen years, and that morning had decided to leave him. Blizzards in Manhattan usually cheer me up. They blanket the city with a sedative, allowing everyone to cancel plans and stay home, but on that day in December of 2006, I was glumly thinking about my life when Taylor called me at the store. “Would you make your turkey meatloaf ?” he asked. “And pick up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.” “Meatloaf and champagne?” I asked, thinking the weird combination sounded like we were celebrating being broke. He also knew I didn’t drink, and envisioning him tipsy on the one night I needed him sober increased my irritation. “What’s the occasion?” “Today I proved time travel is possible.” “Really?” “I sent a condom back to 1979.” 3 4 “For real?” “Yes. For real.” I knew I’d said the wrong thing. If I could select one superpower, it would be the ability to predict that I was about to say the wrong thing. It’s not a power that would save the world, but it might rescue my relationships. “I’m just . . . surprised.” “Flabbergasted” and “incredulous” were actually more accurate terms. For the past five years, Taylor had been working on this government-sponsored time machine project—which I kept hearing about, even though it’s supposed to be top secret. (You’d think the Feds would understand national security is never going to trump the need for two gay men to complain about their jobs.) I’d tried to be supportive, but the truth is I’d always thought building a time machine was more in my line of work. I’m a comic book dealer and spend every day with grown men who inhabit fantasy worlds. It was fine with me that Taylor believed time travel was possible, but I thought the chances of him building a functioning time machine were about as likely as my chances of being bitten by a radioactive spider and being transformed into a wall-climbing, web-shooting hunk. Honestly, I’d thought the charming Taylor had just suckered the government into giving him a well-paying job where he could play around with their billion-dollar toys for the next twenty years. No one expects his boyfriend to call and say, “Hey, I was out walking today and found a ring. It’s hallmarked ‘Made in Mordor’” or “I hung your sweater in the wardrobe and now it’s being dry-cleaned in Narnia.” I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Taylor had built a time machine, but it was like trying to wrap my head around the Big Bang. I also felt envious that his dream of a lifetime had come true on the same day my dream disappeared into a black hole. His announcement confirmed my belief that I was about to be unhappy for a long period of time. “Jesus Christ, John. Try not to sound so thrilled. You ruin everything.” “I’m sorry.” 5 “I’m sure on the day Edison came home with his bulb, the missus didn’t bemoan all the candles and kerosene she’d recently bought.” “You’re right. I’m proud of you. It’s incredible.” My apology was heartfelt, but it was hard to feel happy for Taylor’s success while mourning the failure of our relationship. I felt more anxious about telling him “it’s over” than when I first said “I love you.” He might not even be surprised by my announcement, which would only reinforce my conviction we were finished. I’d had doubts about whether I was making the right decision, until I sadly realized it would be almost like telling a stranger, “I don’t love you anymore.” It would have been easier to boot Taylor if he’d done something conventionally unforgivable. He wasn’t violent or abusive and hadn’t cheated on me with another man; a fickle heart or wayward penis might have caused me to give him a second chance, but it was his...