Key of Silences

How did you sleep? I ask, knowing about the nightmares, and / I’m good goes my grandma, half a muffin dropping into her mouth. Sleep, I yell, did you sleep all right? She shakes her head. I had a bad cough, but it’s gone now. She coughs into her napkin—a smear of brick red lipstick stays behind. Maybe we should get you some cough medicine, I say / Oh, you want some muffin? We have spent decades having different conversations. She coughs again—we both pick up our coffee mugs. It’s too hot, she says and the only answer is to wait, go slower, be patient…but she is not patient with anything and I am not patient with her and the coffee really should be cool by now…I lean forward and blow on it. She kisses the top of my head—right on the part, right where I’m wondering what words to try next. Orange juice? I pour her a glass and she palms her morning pills, all eight of them, tossing them back, sipping, swallowing. Her face pinches like an expletive—and she gasps for air, grasps for more juice. Can you believe? she says, I gotta take all that.

Inspired by Kate Finegan’s “A Teacher’s Guide to Keeping Time.”

Brooke Randel

Brooke Randel is a writer and associate creative director in Chicago. Her writing has been published in Hippocampus, Hypertext Magazine, Jewish Fiction, and elsewhere. She is currently writing a memoir about her grandma, literacy and the legacy of the Holocaust. Find more of her work at brookerandel.com.