Dad had a schedule

every Wednesday

every Sunday he wound the old clock

They’d had it since the 60’s

They had requested it when the old church in Pittsburgh was torn down.

It was retrieved from the hall where a youthful Mom and Dad had lingered in the late thirties. A kid had scratched into the brass pendulum initials and a date.

As a young man I’d done surgery on it when it stopped ticking. Unsolicited. Guessing at its workings I got the gears unstuck

I don’t know how

It just happened.

It was the heartbeat of our home, then their new home at Penney Retirement Community.

It hung in the living room. I could hear it ticking on the other side of my wall, marking the last days of Mom, the last months of Dad.

Then the deepest silence descended on that house. The clock confirmed they were gone. It’s the one thing of theirs I wanted. I got it.

I wind it. I’m not regimented like Dad.

I’m bad.

I don’t know Wednesday from Sunday.