“So how many memories are you sharing today?”

“Two.”

“They didn’t explain when you signed up that you have to do at least five?”

“I’m not doing more than two,” Ruthie announces, and Ilan adds, “We agreed with your people on two when we spoke on the phone.”

“I apologize, we don’t even have an option for two on our price list.”

“Then we’ll pay for five and do two,” Ilan replies, and Ruthie smiles. She loves his resolve, how he doesn’t play games. How he stands behind her.

The woman makes a quick call. Inquires. “I’m sorry, they should have updated me,” she says. “Two it is.” She reminds them it’s important that the memory they share have a defined time and place, otherwise the machine will struggle to copy it, explaining they had yet to nail the abstract memories. “The whole procedure will take thirty minutes. If one of you needs to tinkle, now’s the time.”

“We went at home,” Ilan says, and the woman smiles. Handing them each a glass of a clear liquid, she explains it’s supposed to help the brain register the new memories. She stresses its blurring effect. Ilan drinks it slowly. Ruthie downs it in one gulp. It’s terribly sweet.

“Let’s begin.”

Ilan kisses Ruthie on her cheek and moves toward his machine. Ruthie approaches hers and lies down on the table. The padding is cold. Typical of Amichai not to have thought about that.

She looks at Ilan who looks back at her and blows her a kiss. It embarrasses her, so she fixes her eyes on the ceiling, picking up a buzzing sound. The machine kicks into motion, sliding her into a white tunnel until it swallows her whole.

“Close your eyes,” a soothing voice announces through the speakers. “Deep breaths.”

She tries. Thinks about her and Amichai’s son. How he told her that the day he entered that machine, he realized she was wrong. That people weren’t meant to roam this world alone. Told her about the first time he and his wife, Naomi, exchanged memories. Said, “Where words fail, technology prevails.” She looked at her lovestruck child and felt happy for him. Tried not to think about the unfortunate yet inevitable distance a child must travel away from his mother.

“Doesn’t feel right to me,” she confessed to him when they talked about the machine. Said it felt a little too close, all the memories and photos and messages people share with one another all day. He rolled his eyes at her. She thought he probably told Naomi his mother was no longer “with it,” the way he spoke about other people. For a few years now—since her senior citizen card appeared in the mail—he’s been looking at her differently. Testing her whenever she forgets where she has left her keys or struggles to remember the name of some old classmate.