2 a.m. is the hour of malcontent. The restless lie afraid of tomorrow, and the wide-awake try to bury the past.

Misha shifted her legs so she could wipe off their slick sweat on the bedsheet. The gentle whirr of the ceiling fan did little to assuage the relentless heat of Indian summer. She kept her eyes shut tight in a fruitless attempt to lure sleep, but her mind threw blank sheet after blank sheet for her thoughts to scribble on.

A grinding noise punctured her ears: the crunch of hard, white enamel scraping against itself from inside her husband’s mouth. Karim was facing away from her, and she knew he was dreaming. She poked her finger between his shoulder blades. A grunt, a sharp intake of breath, and a mumbled, “Sorry. Was I…?”

“Mhm,” she said.

He shuffled, and as she lay there, time lengthened into a paradox. As long as the sun remained a recluse, the sky in shadow, there was a chance she might drift off. But oh, how long was the night.

3 a.m. is the honest hour, when spent minds yield truths held since the death of yesterday.

“I want to plant a new jasmine,” Misha half-whispered to the void.

Karim went still, even in breath, as if the ticking of the clock would dissolve her words into the night.

“I know you’re awake,” she said.

His silence, now wilful ignorance, played havoc with her heart.

“Please, don’t you think it’s time?”

“It’s too soon.”

“It’s been a year.”

“How can we ever trust a jasmine again?”

She sighed. From the ghost light seeping under the door, she could make out the back of her husband’s head and saw the rounded curve of his spine that formed as his legs drew into his chest. She put a hand on his arm and felt the tiny hairs prickle.

“Karim.”

He turned with her tender tug so that they lie face to face, but his eyes resisted, cast down into the folds of cotton.

 “You used to sing along to the radio every morning,” she said, “but now you forget to even turn it on. You’ve stopped coming to give me a kiss when I hang the laundry. I know I’m guilty too, being wrapped up in my own world of thoughts. But we can’t sit and wait while we shrivel into bitter husks, we can’t let it take more from us than it already has.”

“It?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You don’t leave the toothpaste out for me anymore, after you’re done.”

She could feel him clenching and releasing his toes, his habitual tick of agitation. She took his face between her palms, and he raised his eyes to meet hers at last. They were soft, dark, and vulnerable.

“I love you,” she said.

His gaze slipped — no matter how often he said those words back, she knew it was hard for him to put his fragile heart in her hands.

Her reassuring smile weighed heavy. “I know. I know you still hurt every day. I do too. We need a reason to go on.”

“But what if it happens again?”

“It won’t. We have to trust it won’t.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.” A lone tear leaked from the corner of his eye and fell to the pillow’s embrace.

Misha pressed her forehead against his, and they both closed their eyes.

4 a.m. is the liminal hour. Today and tomorrow are in a state of flux.

Ruby lips emerged amongst the delicate, white petals. Sunshine sculpted a halo, and the bright glare caused her to wince. She reached towards the small hand whose chubby fingers were curled and grasping for hers. She leaned, but the distance only stretched further. The tiny fingers leapt forward and grabbed her thumb, and her heart soared, only to recoil in horror as thorns began to sprout from her skin. Blood blossomed in her vision; red, spattered on white. She heard a scream, her scream, as the blinding light crescendoed and blotted out eternity.

She was in a plain, white-walled room with pine floorboards. On the floor, in the centre of the room, lay a single, pink flower.

5 a.m. is for resolution. Even for the uncertain, there is no turning back.

Misha’s woke as the dawn chorus sprung to life. Blue whistling thrushes chirruped as they hopped from branch to branch of the great banyan tree outside, chasing each other with playful pecks and kisses. The immortal tree watched on with amusement, its olive-green leaves chuckling from time to time in the breeze.

“A rose,” she said.

A sliver of hope crept carefully into Karim’s eyes: the flicker of a rekindled ember, dormant for far too long.

“Not to replace,” Misha continued.

“No. Nothing could replace Jasmine.”

“Nothing,” she agreed.

Karim sat up, exposing his bare torso. His brown skin was coarse and uncared for, pulled tight against his bones, but his bearing was strong. She clutched at the sorrow in her breast, sweetened with pride.  

“We can’t forget her,” he said.

“Never.”

A spike of ferocity entered her heart. She would remember until her bones were dust, until the sky fell, and still, when her ashes were scattered to the wind.

“Then, I’m ready,” he replied. “A rose it is.”

Misha peeled the thin sheet from her body and stood up to open the curtains. The pale, morning light filled the room as she looked out into the garden, and her eyes came to rest on the bare dirt underneath the trellis; a vacant bed where a lost jasmine once grew.

“Rose, it is,” she said.

– Edward Latham