The couch's cushions dug against Page's rear as he fidgeted on his seat. The joints of his fingers started aching with how much he twiddled them. Opposite him, claiming the other armrest and using it as a backrest, was a woman who had been nothing but a figment of his imagination since a few minutes ago. After ushering him to where he was, she never stopped looking at him.

None of them spoke for a series of long beats. Finally, Dara inhaled a sharp breath and clasped her hands around the knee of her crossed legs. "I missed you, Page," she started. "But it saddens me how I found you like this. It must have been progressing badly."

Page knitted his eyebrows, throwing his hands in the air. "What is?" he demanded, his voice rising. He shouldn't even be angry at the woman, but everything she was saying, each bit about him that she claimed to know—they gnawed at the rim of his annoyance like hungry caterpillars. "I don't really know what you are, or what right do you have, stepping into my house a–and saying those things. I don't know you, and if you say you're my wife one more time, I'll—"

"But I am your wife," Dara interjected with her tone clipping at that specific word. "At least, I was until I...well, died."

Page sighed, massaging his temples with both hands. "For the last time, I don't have a dead wife," he said.

"Then explain those picture frames turned down." Dara jerked her chin towards the top of the shelves where, true to her word, more than a dozen stands sticking in the air. Cobwebs formed valances over the entire display, betraying just how unkempt that part of the house was. Why were those frames that way? He couldn't remember ever doing that. Those frames didn't exist back then, maybe. "I bet you five quid my face is in one of them."

Eager to prove her wrong, he marched towards the shelves and gathered the frames in his arms. Dust assaulted his nose, but he coughed and waved a free hand in front of his face. On his way back, he glanced at the floor only to realize Dara didn't have a shadow. Not really. The sunlight streaming past the windows went right through her.

He settled back on the couch and deposited all the frames in the space between them on the couch. He started turning them over.

"Looks like you owe me more than five," Dara said, amusement thick in her voice.

Page's head snapped up from the murky array of the same woman in front of him, albeit a little fuller and...realer. Her smile was back in full bloom, her features fueled by the pictures he had just seen. Why would he have pictures of a woman in the house he has lived in for a few months?

"Ah, I missed this place," Dara said, fishing a specific picture from the pile and holding it up for him to see. It was a faded picture of a park, complete with towering trees, kids with balloons in the background, and the black-railed fence behind a solitary figure in a winter dress in the middle. "This is where we first met. I was with my friends, and you are an artist searching for your next realism model. For some reason, you found me. Asked me to do a pose. Thanked me later with a pence. What were you thinking? A pence wouldn't buy anything worthwhile even during that time."

A chuckle rose from Page's throat. Dara's story could be nothing but her fabrication, but it didn't explain the same film of events slowly crawling out of the recesses of his mind. Did...did those really happen?

Dara's smile softened as she studied the picture. The lines around her eyes mellowed. "We used to come to this park and take more photos long after we met the second time," she continued. "The fifth shoot, you told me you liked me. And...you know, the rest is history."

A distant stream of recollection zipped across his brain. There was a girl...someone who made him smile as much as the woman in the picture. The park was familiar, and the story fit right where the gaps appeared. So, he asked Dara out after taking her pictures, and they got married?

"Am I..." Page dared to venture, meeting Dara's eyes from across the couch. "Am I forgetting you?"

The smile on her face turned sadder. "That is why I'm here," she said. "Your mind must have called to me, bringing me to life. Proof that you're a great artist, right? Imagine being able to bring the inanimate to life."

"I only exist as long as you remember me," Dara pushed on. "And we don't have enough time left. I'm so sorry, Page."

"Will you be truly gone once that time runs out?" Page asked. Despite not piecing it together at first, he kind of wanted to be in Dara's company. She was nice when she wasn't attempting to bust the doors down. "I...don't want you to go."

"Then, remember me," she replied.

"Help me so I won't," Page blurted, glancing at the pictures once more. "Forget you, that is."

The entire day went by, every hour filled with Dara's stories about how she and Page lived. Most of those supposed years together were unfamiliar, but he relished listening to Dara's melodic voice, her gentle laughs, and the slight city accent creeping into her tone whenever she got carried away.

It seemed as if they had been through a lot together. Page made great money in the city, hosting exhibitions and catching the eyes of high-ranking officials and wealthy patrons. They liked his style, the softness of the colors he used, and the precise brushstrokes he became known for. Dara spoke of these things with such sparkle in her eyes, as if she had been there when it happened.

Then, her smile faded as the story neared its end. Dara got sick, and within a year, she was gone. Page's memory offered no guidance about what happened to him after that, but it wouldn't take an ordinary man to piece the events together.

If Page loved Dara the same intensity she portrayed him with, he would be beside himself, losing her as young as he did. Maybe he packed up and moved from the city to this rural nowhere and has since retreated from the rest of the world. Dara said he was forgetting. Well, there were rumors of cases where brains purposefully avoided remembering things, people, or events that hurt them. And if Dara didn't mean to, her disappearance hurt him. Deeply.

And now, he was hurting her all over again.

How could she take it? How could anyone take being betrayed over and over, even past the grave? He was the worst man to have ever graced Dara's life, it seemed.

Page snuck a glance at the bay windows, noting how fast the sun was setting. If the rules of yesterday's incident held, she would be gone by sundown. And tomorrow, no assurance awaited him on whether he would be able to remember a sliver of her face. There were pictures, but without Dara to remind him of the times they shared, she would just be another face Page would claim he never knew.

Dara was in the middle of recreating her time in the zoo where an elephant scared the living daylights out of her when Page interjected. "Tell me," he said. "How can I stop forgetting you?"

Her mood shifted so quickly, perhaps noting the urgency in Page's tone. Sundown couldn't have come sooner. "Remember the lilies," she said with a small smile. "You may forget who I am tomorrow, but as long as you see lilies, know that I am always with you."

Page opened his mouth, feeling his eyes well with tears he wouldn't be able to explain to himself from six hours ago. Dara met his eyes. If paintings could cry, it would be a sight to see. "I'll always be with you, Page," she said. "Even if you forget sometimes."

Then, as fast as she appeared in his life, she blinked out of it, leaving Page all alone. He couldn't decide if he wanted to be.