The question of Walt's vintage watch returned on a rainy Thursday.
I was cleaning the bedroom wardrobe when I found the small wooden box where he had kept it.
The watch had belonged to Walt's father before it came to him.
It was not especially valuable in the way people usually meant when they spoke about expensive watches. The strap was worn, the glass had a small scratch, and the metal had darkened with age.
But Walt had treasured it.
He wore it on special occasions, then stopped wearing it when his eyesight began to trouble him.
After that, it stayed in the wooden box, wrapped in a soft cloth.
I carried it downstairs and placed it on the kitchen table.
For a long time, I simply looked at it.
I remembered Stephanie asking about it during her single phone call while I was staying with Danny.
At the time, she had not asked whether I was comfortable or whether I needed anything.
She had asked whether I still had her father's watch.
I had been hurt by the question.
Now I wondered whether the watch meant something to her that I had never understood.
I called her.
“Stephanie, do you remember asking me about your father's watch?”
There was a pause.
“Yes.”
“Why did you want to know whether I still had it?”
She did not answer immediately.
“I suppose I should explain that.”
“I'd like you to.”
She took a breath.
“When Dad was in the hospital, I asked him about the watch. He told me it had belonged to Grandpa and that he wanted you to keep it safe.”
I looked at the wooden box.
“He told you that?”
“Yes. I thought you might have given it away or lost it when you were dealing with all the bills.”
I leaned back in my chair.
“Why didn't you ask whether I was all right?”
Her voice became quieter.
“I should have.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“I know.”
She was silent for a moment.
“I think I was worried about the watch because it was one of the few things of Dad's I could imagine keeping. I was scared of losing everything that reminded me of him.”
I looked at the watch again.
That explanation did not erase the way she had treated me.
But it gave the question another meaning.
“You could have told me that,” I said.
“I know. I was embarrassed. I thought asking about the watch was easier than admitting how much I missed him.”
I closed the box.
“Your father loved that watch.”
“I know.”
“He wore it when we went to your grandparents' anniversary dinner. He wore it when Michael graduated. He wore it the day Danny started his first job at the garage.”
Stephanie gave a small laugh through her tears.
“He wore it to everything.”
“He did.”
We sat quietly on the telephone.
Then I said, “The watch is here. I haven't decided what I want to do with it.”
“I don't want you to think I'm asking for it now.”
“Are you?”
“No. I want you to know why I asked before.”
I believed she was trying to be honest.
It was not a perfect conversation, but it was better than the one I had imagined having with her in the weeks after Thanksgiving.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said.
After we hung up, I opened the wooden box again.
I lifted the watch carefully and turned it over.
On the back, Walt's father had scratched a small set of initials many years earlier.
I had never paid much attention to them.
I fetched my reading glasses and examined the engraving.
Then I smiled.
Walt had once told me that his father had tried to make the watch feel personal by marking it himself, though he had never been particularly good with fine tools.
The initials were crooked.
They were also unmistakably his.
I put the watch back in its box.
I was not ready to give it away.
It belonged to Walt's history, and I wanted to understand what I wanted it to mean before deciding where it should go.
That afternoon, I took the box to Danny's apartment.
I had planned to bring him some soup, but the rain was coming down hard, so I waited until he finished work.
When he came through the door, he saw the wooden box in my hands.
“What's that?”
“Your father's watch.”
He dried his hands and sat beside me.
I opened the lid.
Danny looked at the watch for a long time.
“I remember that.”
“He wore it to your first day at the garage.”
Danny smiled.
“He said I needed to look respectable.”
“You were wearing your work boots.”
“I thought they were respectable.”
We laughed.
Then Danny touched the edge of the box.
“Why did you bring it here?”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
He waited.
“Your sister once asked whether I still had it. I wondered if you had ever thought about it.”
Danny shook his head.
“No. I remember Dad wearing it, but I never thought it should belong to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was his watch.”
He looked at me.
“If you want to keep it, keep it. If you want Stephanie to have it because it means something to her, that's fine too.”
“And what if you wanted it?”
He shrugged.
“Then I'd tell you. But I don't want it just because it might be valuable.”
I studied his face.
“You really don't think about these things?”
“I think about plenty of things, Mom.”
He grinned.
“Mostly whether my car will make it through another winter.”
I laughed.
He was not pretending that money meant nothing.
He knew what it was like to count the hours he worked against the bills waiting at home.
He knew how much a broken appliance could disrupt a month's budget.
But he had not made his love conditional on what he might receive.
That difference mattered.
I closed the box and placed it in my handbag.
“Thank you for talking with me.”
“Anytime.”
Before I left, Kayla came into the kitchen and asked whether I was staying for dinner.
I accepted.
The boys were excited because their father had promised to help them build a cardboard garage for their toy cars.
They spread boxes across the living room floor and argued over where the doors should go.
Danny crouched beside them, cutting cardboard with a pair of scissors.
Kayla handed me a roll of tape.
I sat on the floor and helped hold the walls in place.
For nearly an hour, no one talked about the watch, the letters, or the money.
We argued about the roof.
We repaired a wall that kept falling inward.
We laughed when one of the boys insisted that the garage needed a second floor for the cars to sleep on.
By the time we finished, the cardboard building leaned slightly to one side.
Danny declared it perfect.
I thought of Walt's crooked engraving.
Some things carried their meaning precisely because they were not perfect.
When I returned home that evening, I placed the watch in the locked drawer of Walt's desk.
I would speak with Stephanie again before making a decision.
Not because she had asked for something.
Because she had finally explained what she had been afraid to lose.
And I was beginning to understand that the people I loved could make mistakes for reasons I had never considered.
That did not excuse the hurt.
It simply gave me more truth to work with.
I turned off the kitchen light and listened to the rain against the window.
The watch was safe.
So was my decision.
For now, that was enough.
Click here to continue reading: PART 25: What I Wanted the Money to Mean
The Three Phone Calls I Made After Walt Died Began With a Lie I Thought My Children Would Never Make Me Regret
Part 24 of 28
