Keeping Time

The mantle clock struck a single chime. I hadn’t heard it in years. Not since my husband stopped winding it when it kept losing time, despite our best efforts to keep it up to speed. But this particular morning, as I sat down with my cup of morning coffee and the day’s paper, it spoke to me in an otherwise quiet house. I walked over and noticed the little hand near 11 and the big hand close to the 8. Not the right time—I didn’t expect it to be—but why chime at all at that strange hour.

When I was little, my grandfather and I wound this clock every day. It lived on the mantle in our dining room, where we ate the big family meal at noon. Pa always arrived a little early so he could have a cocktail, and I loved spending time with him. Checking the clock was one of our cherished rituals. Years after he died, when my husband and I got a house of our own, my mom wrapped it in some old bath towels and carried it with her on the plane from Louisiana to Connecticut. It has been on our mantle since 1999.

I checked the clock to see whether it was ticking. It wasn’t. Strange, I thought. But not so. You see, this day—July 28th—was the anniversary of my mom’s death. Eleven years ago. Pa’s baby girl. My mom had taken care of Pa for years after her own mother died, even after he remarried and moved out of the family home, where my mom continued to live and, with my dad, had her family, my brother and me. She had worked and raised kids and tended to Pa and all she ever wanted most days was a quiet morning to sit with a hot cup of coffee and read the paper. She rarely got it.

For ten years after she died, I held tight to July 28th, the date of my mom’s death. It was my own holy day of obligation. No meetings, no appointments, no to-dos. A day of reflection. I didn’t necessarily intend to hold the date forever but every year, as the date drew near, I didn’t have a good reason not to observe it. Until now. This year, my dad needed a ride to a doctor’s appointment. I put it on my calendar. I got up early so I could have a bit of that quiet she always craved before heading out. Sitting in my favorite chair, my legs curled under me, I took those first few sips. That’s when I heard the single chime.

My husband came up from the basement, where he had been working. “Did you hear that?” I asked. “I did,” he said. We looked at each other. We looked at the clock. We didn’t say anything more. I finished my coffee, grabbed my keys, and went to pick up my dad.

A few days later, my husband asked me if I had noticed where the clock had stopped. I hadn’t. I had forgotten that when it was wearing down it would occasionally chime and run for a bit before falling entirely silent again. “Go look,” he said. I got up from the table. The little hand at 12, the big hand just a touch after. My mom’s time of death? 12:03

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