I thumb at the marred surface with my eyes closed, feeling every nick and scratch. It’s the last piece I have of my grandpa.

The bed springs creak as I shift to unbutton my shirt. Then I lift the chain to the crown of my head and drop it there.

The metal settles around my neck and against my bare skin like a cool brand. Its tick climbs into my throat and leaves a lump; it climbs into my ribcage and beats there, a second heart. I breathe in time with its measured pace, matching my inhales and exhales to the sound of time passing, and wait for my throat to clear.

It doesn’t. The lump wedged inside my throat doesn’t dissolve. It just kind of sits there like a slowly melting ice cube until I think too hard and it comes right back.

I stare at the ceiling and just— remember. Remember Grandpa’s laugh, that elusive magic. Remember the way he called me; “Peter,” he’d say, “my boy, where’s your father?”

He’d sit with my father on the front porch and smoke until the sun hung big and faded and heavy in the sky. If I asked for a puff, Grandpa’d chuck me on the head and say he’d share one when I was a man.

I sit up on my elbows to run a finger over the engraving done on the side. Peter Lyle Thomas.

He didn’t just give me these memories or this pocket watch; he left me his name.

As I watch the moon glint off the timepiece, I wonder what I’ll do with his name. Where I’ll take it. How I’ll show the world my heritage.

But here and now, the hours of the night are measured in an endless tick, tick, tick.

And I have all the time in the world to figure out how I’m going to continue Grandpa’s legacy.