I hold it out to Kate. “Apparently I want to give guitar lessons.” I drop my eyes to my notebook, embarrassed by the idea. What in the world put that into my head? How can I teach when I can’t recall what I had for breakfast? I run the tip of my pen over a line, keep tracing it until the line is thick and black and imprinted onto the page below it.

“Does that upset you?” When I look up I find her looking at the angry line in my notebook, eyebrows raised. “This is a new idea.” There’s excitement in her voice.

I put a hand to my chest and say jokingly, “My God, Kate, have we actually reached new territory?”

She laughs. “Always the funny one, but yes, you haven’t tried something like this before, and I think it would be fun for you.” Her forehead wrinkles. “When did you learn?”

“My mom taught me when I was a little girl. Well, she was teaching herself and wanted me to learn, so . . .” I blow air into my cheeks, try to hold on to an attitude of I’m too old to be hurt by memories of my mother but find it difficult when this particular memory is spiced with warmth and sweetened by chocolate. We’ll learn together, Claire bear. I was six, in the years when she read me a story every night, snuggled beside me on my small bed, my head resting in the crook of her arm. The years when her laugh was clear and free and I was enough to keep her nightmares at bay.

I start to tear at the page. “It was stupid of me to think this was possible. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

Mom’s voice fills my head: It says here to start with these eight chords. She’d read from a booklet she’d found at a used bookstore in Anchorage, the one that said BEGINNER GUITAR in white block letters across the front. I sat beside her on the couch, our legs touching, my feet swinging above the floor, and she looked at me with a smile that touched the blue green of her eyes.

I close the notebook. “Not possible.”

Kate tilts her head. “You’re allowed to have dreams, Claire,” she says softly, and points to my notebook. “Look at what you’ve done already with your notes and calendars. It’s remarkable and truly impressive how you’ve taught yourself to remember in this way. But maybe this would give you something more.”

I stiffen. “More than what?”

“More than just trying to remember,” she says softly. “An experience that you would enjoy.”