Emmanuel called Daphne by the wrong name sometimes.
She brought it up the first time he did it, when he was staring into space like he did - trying to listen to "the angels". He had his head cocked to one side, not paying her any attention even as she approached, but she knew that he had a hard time hearing the voices, so that was fine. When she told him that she was going to bed and that she loved him, he didn't even look at her when he said, in a softer voice than she'd ever heard him use, "I love you too, Dean."
She laughed a little, though it wasn't really very funny, and said, "Who's Dean?"
That made him finally look her way. "What?"
"You called me Dean."
He tried to recall doing it, but couldn't, and said that he didn't know anyone called Dean anyway. But she could see a deep crease form between his eyebrows, and knew that he wasn't being entirely truthful.
Daphne tried to accept that Emmanuel had memory problems, because she'd known that when she'd married him, but there was clearly some significance to the name and he would do nothing but deny it. Did he really not remember?
After that if just kept happening.
Whenever Emmanuel was particularly distracted. Never a different name. Always Dean.
She got less and less understanding about it, especially when Emmanuel denied doing it, and yet would look so pained.
She came to hate the name Dean.
So when that strange man introduced himself as Dean - and she saw the way he looked at her husband. It all finally clicked into place. She knew she'd lost him. That she'd never really had him at all in the first place.
