Passed Time

Lorraine and Melvin got married twenty four years ago, and their clock stopped working twenty one years ago. The clock was a wedding present that sat atop their mantle, hands unmoving for eternity, or at least until they replaced the batteries. But they had been procrastinating buying new batteries for twenty one years. Originally out of laziness, but by now the batteries had grown more expensive than it was worth to invite that incessant ticking back into their lives. It would be nice to have the clock work again, but Lorraine had to admit she enjoyed having a quiet, peaceful living room to read in. Her father had loved it dearly when he owned it, for it was his oldest antique given to him by his father, but he decided to give it away along with his daughter so she could have a piece of her dad with her for the rest of time. And for that reason alone, Lorraine couldn’t bring herself to get rid of that broken old clock.

Lorraine’s father was an eclectic man with eclectic tastes. Her childhood home was more of a museum than a home, or maybe a high end thrift store. Every room was filled with antiques her father had collected, and continued collecting, over the years. Couches Lorraine wasn’t allowed to sit on (“that depreciates their value” her father would tell her five year old self), statues of figures Lorraine could never quite figure out the nature of, and more dark oak pieces than there were oak trees in the forest. Lorraine never plucked up enough courage to send a tape of him in for the television show Hoarders, although he had done a brief stint on Antiques Roadshow (and never shut up about it), which was close enough.

It was a breath of fresh air when Lorraine had moved out of her parent’s house when she was twenty two and in with Melvin. To Lorraine’s astonishment and delight, Melvin was a minimalist. Not in the sense that he threw away all of his unnecessary material possessions in favor of a cleaner lifestyle, just in that the only necessary material possessions he owned were his lazy boy and his television. He was nothing like her father, which was good, because no matter how much she loved her father, Lorraine could only handle one of him in her life.

That clock was one of only a handful of true decorations in their house. The face of the clock small and golden, while the dark oak encasing it sloped like a hill around it. Lorraine stared up at it now. Its hands perpetually stuck at exactly four o’clock. She almost laughed, for the clock’s inability to pass time mimicked how agonizingly long the day had lasted, but on this day of all days, not even fates’ twisted sense of humor could make her laugh.

It was a lonely day spent in solitude and pajamas. Melvin had work and Lorraine didn’t have it in her to ask him to take the day off so she didn’t have to be alone. Nothing was really wrong. Things had been wrong a year ago though, which left the distinct impression of wrongness on this day forever.

From the arm of the chair, her phone buzzed. Curled up in a blanket on the sofa, eyes focused on the air just shy of the wall, Lorraine picked her body up, the weight of her emotions bogging down her physical weight, and looked at the screen.

I love you, mom. And I know grandpa loved you too. I wish I could give you a hug for him.

See you at Thanksgiving <3

Lorraine hadn’t cried all day. She wanted to, but she felt silly, even by herself. Moms aren’t supposed to cry, they’re the strong ones, the ones that fix everything. But Amelia was an adult now and it was Lorraine’s turn to be a kid and let herself be comforted. The tears spilled over her eyelids. The first tear was for how proud she was of Amelia for growing into such a caring and compassionate young woman, but the rest were for her father.

Lorraine thought she’d be ready. Her father had lived a long life, and when a parent lives a long life, their child has flown away from the nest and made their own. No longer dependent on the parent to feed them worms and keep them under their wing. But choosing a life out from under their wing but still knowing the wing is out there if they need it is different than the thought of that wing being ripped away.

“Lorraine, I’m home.” Keys jangling. Lorraine wiped away her tears before Melvin could see them.

Melvin dropped his briefcase and jacket on the floor in the foyer. Lorraine would pick it up for him later and set everything out so he could be ready for work the next day. He walked across the living room and planted a kiss on Lorraine’s temple.

“How you holding up?”

“I’m good,” Lorraine lied. It was rather unconvincing but Melvin wasn’t observant enough to notice. She took a deep, shaky breath and plastered a smile on her face. “Really.”

They settled into their nightly routine. Melvin settled into his La-Z-Boy and turned on Monday night football. He kept the volume on mute so Lorraine on the other end of the couch could focus on the book in front of her. It was a nice gesture that she appreciated on most days, but today there were other much more distracting things than noisy football games.

The words in the book seemed to retreat into the worn pages, growing smaller and smaller with every ounce of concentration she tried to put forth. Her eyes unfocused until once again she was only staring at the air in front of the book while memories and images of her father peppered her consciousness. His goofy smile when he told a bad joke, the way he scratched his beard when he concentrated, even his obnoxiously loud snoring.

One memory jumped out. It was a nearly forty year old memory. Lorraine, just barely out of the toddler phase, was obsessed with reading, a trait she had kept ever since. She made her parents read her every picture book and chapter book they owned at least three times over. But she soon grew bored with the same stories. She decided she wanted to be a big girl, and big girls read big girl books. She marched up to the floor to ceiling dark oak bookcase. The shelves were covered in small statues, vases, old books; an antique filled with antiques. Lorraine called for her father and pointed to the biggest, dustiest book she could find and demanded that her dad read it to her like a big girl. He normally liked to keep his collections purely on display, but he loved his daughter so he made an exception. He pulled down the first edition copy of War and Peace, pulled Lorraine into his lap, and read to her until she fell asleep in his arms. Lorraine didn’t so much remember the falling asleep part, she remembered pretending she knew what anything he read to her meant and feeling like a real, cultured adult. She didn’t even know what the word cultured meant but she figured that’s what she must be in that moment.

It hadn’t been a special memory at the time, but every time she remembered it, it grew a little fonder in her mind. Very few grown adults want to read War and Peace for leisure, let alone five year olds. Someone else might have laughed it off and told her to wait a few years. But Lorraine’s father read page after page of Napoleon invading Russia with the animation in his voice as if he were reading a picture book about ladybugs.

On this day, after that memory, Lorraine couldn’t bring herself to continue reading the romance novel in her hands.

God, she wanted this day to be over.

She didn’t know what time it was, but the sky had grown dark behind the sheer curtains over the window. It was too early to go to sleep, though, she knew that. If she even tried she would just end up with her head on her pillow, reliving the same memories over and over against the back of her eyelids. Happy ones of her father smiling as she followed him around thrift stores as a child looking for the one treasure in a sea of trash. And also sad ones that didn’t include his face at all but just the solemn buzzing of her cell phone with the words Forest Grove Senior Living Facility on the caller ID. She shut her brain down before that memory could continue.

Unable to enjoy her own activities, Lorraine focused on the silent football game. She’d never understood football, even when she could hear the commentators explaining play by play exactly what was happening. Her eyes followed the triangle shaped bodies of muscled college students sprinting and throwing themselves at each other. She wished she was tired. Minutes, seconds dragged on. How much longer would this day last?

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The seconds grew louder in her head, each one like a gong reverberating inside her brain. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of these hallucinatory reminders that this day wasn’t over yet. But the thumping didn’t go away. It was familiar, a sound she hadn’t heard in a long time.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

It was loud. It was incessant. It made her want to cry. But it couldn’t be ticking. The batteries were too damn expensive to replace. Unless… Unless Melvin had done this. They always joked that on their fiftieth wedding anniversary they would finally bite the bullet and spend the exorbitant amount of money to replace the batteries in celebration. Melvin was a quiet and gruff man, but his heart was big. He must have replaced them for her. He’d been there when her father had given her the gift, he knew how special it was to her and how much more special it would be to her on the anniversary of her father’s passing.

“Mel,” Lorraine said, her voice breaking, “Did you do this for me?”

Melvin’s eyebrows furrowed at Lorraine’s melancholy smile and tears in her eyes. “Do what?”

Lorraine motioned towards the clock, whose second hand had made it almost halfway around the face, the most it had traveled in twenty one years.

“No, those batteries are too damn expensive,” Melvin said with skepticism in his voice as he kicked the footrest of his La-Z-Boy in and made his way to the mantle. Lorraine shot up and followed him, a sudden burst of adrenaline picking her up off the couch for the first time that day. She watched over his shoulder as he pulled the clock out from its perch, leaving a rectangle devoid of dust in its wake. He pried the back off of the dark oak clock and sure enough, there was a hole where the circular battery should be. But still the second hand ticked on.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

“What the hell?” Melvin turned the back of the clock at all angles, seemingly looking for another secret battery that must be powering the clock. Needless to say he didn’t find one.

Of all days. Any ounce of logic Lorraine had in her brain was gone. This couldn’t be a coincidence. If it was, this was some cosmic joke intended to break her strong exterior once and for all. But this couldn’t be a coincidence.

Lorraine snatched the clock out of Melvin’s hands. Immediately she felt a rush of sorrow and happiness all wrapped up into one punch in the gut. Something between a breath and a sob left her mouth as she cradled the timepiece in her arms. A familiar energy enveloped her as she closed her eyes. The same feeling she got when she thought back to her father reading her War and Peace. Protective and supportive arms wrapped around her. She could almost feel his gruff hands on her arms, but when she opened her eyes it was only Melvin reaching out to silently comfort her.

She must be imagining things. It was just a silly old malfunctioning clock.

Right?

But she could still feel the painfully loud ticking through the dark oak of the clock. Lorraine hated this. It must be some cosmic joke. It was like the universe was trying to recreate the feeling from a year ago. Just after dusk, the world freshly dark, something she didn’t believe could ever really happen rocked her world and it was happening again. Last time her father was ripped away from her and this time the universe was dangling his return in front of her face like a carrot on a string. The night of October 22nd was forever destined to be terrible.

The night of October 22nd. Lorraine had a crazy idea. The clock had been stuck at exactly four o’clock for over twenty years. If this didn’t work, then she could chalk this whole ordeal up to being a crazy coincidence. She didn’t know which one she would rather it be. She took a deep breath and turned the antique over, revealing the face of the clock.

8:17 it read.

This time it was nowhere close to a breath, it was just a sob.

“Lorraine, what is it?” There was underlying panic in Melvin’s deep voice, unable to understand exactly what his wife was freaking out about.

“Dad died at 8:16.”

The ticking had been going on for a little over a minute. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Lorraine wouldn’t accept that as a coincidence. A clock doesn’t move four hours in a single minute by itself.

“Honey…” Melvin didn’t know what to say, he never truly did in emotional situations, but he wrapped his arms around his wife and that was good enough for her.

In Melvin’s arms, Lorraine hugged the antique clock to her chest, stroking the sleek dark wood, feeling the ticking against her chest in time to her heart as if it contained its own beating heart. She felt another rush of sensation fill her body, but this time it was love, and instead of a punch to the gut it was a gentle kiss on the cheek.

“I love you, Daddy,” Lorraine whispered, her head bowed, lips pressed against the curvature of the clock.

And the ticking subsided.