He Still Hums It in His Sleep

Evening always feels heavier now.

The house is quiet in the way a place becomes quiet after it has lost its music. I move through rooms that still carry echoes of laughter, of clinking glasses, of you calling my name like it belonged to you.

Now, my name means nothing to you.

Since the accident, your mind has been a locked door. Some days you look at me with polite confusion, like I’m a nurse assigned to your care. Other days you stare past me entirely, your eyes fogged over with distance I cannot cross.

I learned quickly not to flinch when you pull away.

Not to cry when you ask, gently, “Do I know you?”

I smile. I answer anyway.

“I’m here,” I say, as if that explains everything.

The doctors warned me about memory loss, about personality changes, about the way trauma can erase pieces of a person. They spoke in careful voices, as if softness could cushion the truth.

But nothing cushions it.

Nothing prepares you for the person you love becoming a stranger who lives in your home.

Still, I stay.

I cook your meals the way you used to like them. I fold your shirts. I tell you small stories about our life, even when you listen like it’s someone else’s romance.

Sometimes I play our song.

It’s an old one, nothing special to anyone else. A melody the radio has probably forgotten. But it was ours. It played the first time you kissed me in the car. It played in the background of late-night dances in the kitchen, when the world was asleep and we were enough.

Now, when it comes on, you don’t react.

Not even a flicker.

It’s like watching a candle refuse to light.

Night is the hardest.

Because nighttime is when I remember the most.

You lie beside me, breathing softly, your face calm in sleep. In the dark, you almost look like the man I married. The man who used to reach for my hand without thinking.

I sit on the edge of the bed sometimes, listening.

And that’s when it happens.

At first, I thought I imagined it.

A sound, barely there. A quiet thread of melody slipping out between your breaths.

A hum.

Soft. Unconscious.

Familiar.

The first night I heard it, my heart stopped.

You were humming our song.

Not perfectly. Not even clearly. Just a few notes, drifting like smoke. But it was unmistakable. The shape of it. The tenderness of it.

I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe.

I just listened, afraid the moment would vanish if I acknowledged it.

The next night, it happened again.

And the next.

During the day, you didn’t know me.

But at night… your sleeping self remembered.

It became my secret ritual.

I started living for those moments, sitting beside you in the dim light, tears gathering silently. Because it felt like proof.

Proof that somewhere inside you, beneath the broken wires and missing memories, love still existed.

Even if you couldn’t name it.

Even if you couldn’t reach for it.

One night, the humming was louder than usual. Your brow furrowed, like your dream was searching for something.

I couldn’t stop myself.

I whispered the lyrics.

Just one line.

The line you used to sing dramatically, always making me laugh.

Your humming paused.

My chest tightened.

Then, slowly, you hummed again.

Stronger this time.

Like an answer.

Like recognition without words.

I covered my mouth with my hand, shaking.

In the dark, I leaned closer.

“I miss you,” I whispered. “I’m still here.”

You didn’t wake.

But your humming didn’t stop.

And for a moment, just a moment, it felt like the distance between us wasn’t immeasurable.

It felt like love was still somewhere in the house.

Not in your memory.

Not in your eyes.

But in the quiet place sleep unlocks, where the heart keeps singing even when the mind forgets the words.