Linda thought she had extensive language skills, but she felt humbled when she started conversing with John. The man had a doctorate in English literature, a career in law, a background rich in Latin and rooted in Catholicism. He knew how to pronounce desultory. He never confused affect with effect. She learned from him.

She also resented. John couldn’t resist correcting when Linda misspoke. Sometimes she used the wrong pronoun after a preposition. Linda would never say “John and me went to the store,” but John made her realize that she did pronounce phrases like “I wonder what the situation will be with Susan and I.”

Of course that’s incorrect. One would never say “come along with I.” She’d been taught before she was ten to play the phrase without the other name – just with me or I – to let her ear show her the correct form of the pronoun.

But apparently she forgot that in conversation. Until John mentioned it. At first she appreciated the correction, kind of. She wanted to get it right. But it was annoying too. She wished John would just smile and indulge her error. She wondered if the correcting was some compulsion of his. After all, he had been a teacher before he turned to law.

Linda and John were not a couple. Each had considered that, but at different times. And the truth is, John wasn’t lusty enough and Linda wasn’t lonely enough, so after a few uncoordinated attempts at flirtation, attempts taken more to appease the friends who introduced them to one another than to explore actual romantic territory, they settled into platonic acquaintance. Each was well into middle-age, comfortable enough financially, and with loose weekend hours they could put to shared walks, meals, and cultural events. They saw one another once or twice a month.

It wasn’t sexism that led them to the activities John suggested. Linda was a home-body; when she wasn’t at work or walking to or from a meal with a friend, she was at home, reading and writing and letting the television run. John’s habits were different. He held season tickets to opera, symphony and ballet. He used his TV to run movies only; the man leased neither dish nor cable. He cooked himself full meals and sat alone at his dining room table to ingest them; Linda took her evening food off the ottoman in front of her couch, in small courses no one would mistake for a meal.

So they tended to go to cultural events for which John held tickets. Or to his house for a five course meal totally prepared by him. Where John always knew more than Linda. Where John held forth on subjects.

And truly, Linda appreciated learning from him. He didn’t turn her into a cook or even a purchaser of theatre tickets, but she knew she was acquiring knowledge about wines and sauces and productions, and she liked those acquisitions. But it irked her when he corrected her speech.

John had a sad final phase. Like so many aging people, he lost some of his mind. In his case the part he lost enables language.

It seemed like no big deal at first. Linda will never forget that time in Santa Fe, when John misplaced the word “usher.” “You know,” he blurted then in frustration, “the person who seats you?”

Linda noticed that. She herself sometimes thought one word and said another – heading to brush her teeth she might mumble something like “time to brush hands,” instead. That sort of mess amused her, let her realize it was nouns she and her cohort were misplacing, and nouns were the first words acquired by babies, and maybe it was a first-in-first-out kind of thing about words and the brain. So she thought little then about John’s word loss, except she saw how much it bothered him, and she wondered why he didn’t just roll with it.

A few days later their friendship shattered. They were in the car, driving to visit an acquaintance as long as they were in New Mexico, and John was demonstrating his new phone’s features to search for the address and telephone number of the residence they sought. He would try the app and then ask Linda if the answer he got was correct. She had the phone number and a sketch of a map in her purse and she repeatedly offered to retrieve the paper data, but John grew more and more pissy as he persisted in his guessing game. He became waspish. He snarled at Linda.

“Oh fuck yourself,” she blurted.

Well that was it. John tightened up immediately. As far as Linda knows, he never loosened.

Neither apologized. They completed that little trip, civilly, and they didn’t see one another after that. John kind of meant to stay in touch. But he slipped fast. Linda learned from their mutual acquaintances that the first diagnosis was acute progressive aphasia; John was losing language. By the time Linda had a twinge of desire to see him again, she didn’t know the way back. He wasn’t answering the old phone number or email address any more. Their mutual acquaintances, the couple who had often traveled with them and even been with them in New Mexico, “sided” with John, stayed friendly with him in his dotage, and protected him from stresses; they didn’t return Linda’s two calls.

It’s been four years, and Linda doesn’t know if John is in the area any more. She doesn’t even know if he’s alive. But she’s noticing something about herself that makes her think of him. Lately Linda’s attention has been grabbed when she hears certain grammatical errors. Just last week, her brother said “I wonder if anyone like her or you will notice the difference,” about his wife and a new workshop arrangement. Linda corrected him. “You mean ‘like she or you’” she said. “You’d never say ‘I wonder if her will notice,’ so you can’t say ‘I wonder if her and you will’ either.”

Linda’s brother smiled at her, but she could tell he didn’t appreciate the correction. She just couldn’t stop herself.