By Kim Malinowski
I wear two watches. One is my grandmother’s broken watch. It is sometimes right, but never wrong, winding with the flick of my wrist, it tells angel time. I don’t hear whispers or talk with the dead—but I do feel pressure on my shoulders or the nape of my neck and know that I am loved. It’s been over a year since my grandmother died. I cling and snarl and laugh. Memories are good, ugly—but I have her watch and wherever she is it is 5:40 in the a.m. or p.m. I hope that she is playing with a small, carnelian umbrella, sipping out of a dainty straw.
It’s 8 a.m., 2:00 angel time, and I am slurping my iced coffee, sloshing it about. I would bring my grandmother a small, McDonald’s coffee every morning—first at her apartment, then at the nursing home. Eight? Nine? years of small coffees, always a bit too hot and drippy. Two creams, no sugar. I miss that. Rising with purpose—making her smile, feel at home. In the end, I wasn’t supposed to bring her coffee, that final cup hurt her mouth. She could barely swallow, but she savored the hot liquid. “Good,” she whispered. We both knew she was dying.I shouldn’t tell secrets. Maybe the details aren’t secrets. My mother and I found her bloody—mouth dripping from broken blisters. Fungal infection. The nursing staff didn’t warn us. My grandmother was scared. I clutched her arm, told her about my cat’s latest adventure and the breeze outside. I wiped the blood and spit. I prayed to every god that has existed and that will exist. At first, she nodded at my rambling— then she looked past me. I covered my own feet in myrrh—her God wouldn’t, couldn’t, understand. I shower away imagined cemetery grit—thinking of dirt and time. I awaken to cold water. She has been Kim Malinowski earned her BA from West Virginia University and her MFA from American University. She studies with The Writers Studio. Her chapbook Death: A Love Story was published by Flutter Press. Her work was featured in Faerie Magazine and appeared in War, Literature, and the Arts, Mookychick, Calliope, and others. Kim is a rabid Star Wars and Harry Potter fan. Yes, she meant rabid.63gone and the mud still clings. I step out and dry off—smooth on the myrrh oil as if I were the one dead. I am in death’s shadow.
It’s 5 p.m., 3:30 angel time and I sit on cold concrete. I have the scroll that everyone at the funeral wrote their memories of my grandmother in. I think we are all but stories, our endings not yet told. I know my grandmother’s stories—at least those that make her my grandmother.
12 a.m. my birthday, 12:00 angel time. We are in synch. I am squeezed with such pain. The last year and this year, I told my friends to stay silent, for my family to pray. I cannot be joyful. I want my grandmother to celebrate with me too much. Even in the nursing home, my mother would help her hide presents for me. She had frosting on her face for my 34th but did not live to see my 35th. I’ve been told I’m selfish not to celebrate. It feels selfish to be happy.
At the funeral, I was given a yellow rose to “press into my Bible.” I have no Bible. My rose dried on the piano. Now, it rests amongst my amethysts. The deep yellow has grown pale. Grief fades. I remember the flecks in her irises. I lie back to dream. I gave her an amethyst for the grave. Peace. Let her find me in the next life. I will find her in the lilac blossoms, in the dusk, the constellations.
I was meant to feel emotions. I feel them now, raw and tough. It’s 4 p.m., 12:00 angel time and I am on a hill, butt in mud. Gloriously alive. Someday, I’ll lock away the watch. But for today, let the memories come. Even demons are not demons. Our fingertips touch through time. All is well. It’s the right time.