I called Scott that afternoon.
He answered after several rings.
"What is it, Jen?"
I tried to keep my voice steady.
"Have you seen Dad's watch?"
He said nothing.
At first, I thought the call had dropped.
Then I heard him breathe into the phone.
"What about it?"
"It's missing from Mom's dresser."
Another pause.
Long enough for me to understand that he knew exactly what I was talking about.
"Scott, did you take it?"
He sighed.
"Look, it wasn't worth much."
I stood beside the kitchen counter and gripped the edge.
"What does that mean?"
"I sold it."
The words were so casual that I almost asked him to repeat them.
He had taken the watch Dad wore for fifty-one years.
He had removed it from the place Mom had chosen for it.
And he had sold it.
"For how much?" I asked.
"Forty dollars."
Forty.
I looked toward the window above my sink.
Outside, a car passed slowly down the street.
For some reason, I remember that more clearly than anything else from the call.
A car.
A quiet kitchen.
My brother explaining the theft of our father's watch as if he were telling me he had sold an old chair.
"Why would you do that?"
"I needed money."
"For what?"
"Gas."
I waited for him to say something else.
Maybe he would apologize.
Maybe he would admit that he had acted without thinking.
Maybe he would tell me where he had sold it so I could try to get it back.
Instead, he sounded irritated.
"Dad wasn't using it anymore."
I felt something change in me.
Not a sudden burst of anger.
Something colder.
"You know Mom kept it beside his glasses."
"It was just sitting there."
"It was his watch, Scott."
"I know whose watch it was."
"Then why did you take it?"
He didn't answer the question.
He told me Mom had enough other things to remember Dad by.
He said the watch would have ended up in a drawer.
He said I was making a big deal out of nothing.
Looking back, I should have ended the conversation then.
Instead, I kept trying to make him understand.
I reminded him of Dad's first paycheck.
I reminded him of the years he wore that watch to work.
I reminded him that Mom had barely managed to sleep since the funeral.
Scott listened without saying much.
Then he told me I needed to calm down.
That was when I hung up.
I sat at the kitchen table for a long time.
I thought about every time Dad had helped him.
The money Dad had given him when he couldn't pay his bills.
The debts Dad had covered.
The conversations Dad had with him behind closed doors because he didn't want the rest of us to know how bad things had become.
Scott had always been able to find a reason.
There was always another emergency.
Another promise.
Another chance.
And now, when Dad couldn't help him anymore, Scott had found one last thing he could turn into money.
I wanted to tell Mom immediately.
I didn't.
I couldn't imagine putting that pain in her hands while she was still learning how to wake up in a house without her husband.
So I called Scott again later that evening.
This time, I asked where he had sold the watch.
"A secondhand place on the avenue," he said.
"What's the name?"
"I don't remember."
"You don't remember where you sold Dad's watch?"
"It was a shop. There are plenty of them."
I asked him to describe the place.
He gave me a few details, but not enough to make the search easy.
I knew the general area.
I also knew that every day mattered if I wanted any chance of getting the watch back.
The next morning, I started looking.
I visited the first shop before lunch.
I described the watch, including the damaged glass and the old leather strap.
The man behind the counter shook his head.
He checked a drawer anyway.
Nothing.
At the next place, a woman listened patiently while I explained what had happened.
She looked through the watches in the display case.
She checked the items that hadn't been priced yet.
Nothing there either.
I went to another shop.
Then another.
Each time, I hoped I would recognize the steel casing.
Each time, I walked back to my car without it.
I didn't tell Mom about the calls.
I told myself I would explain everything once I had the watch in my hands.
That was the plan.
Find it first.
Bring it home.
Let Mom have one less thing to grieve.
But the days passed, and I had nothing to show for the effort.
The watch had become more than a missing object.
It was proof that Scott could still hurt the family even after Dad was gone.
And I couldn't decide whether I was angrier at my brother for taking it or at myself for believing he would finally behave differently.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Searched Every Secondhand Counter I Could Find While Mom Quietly Left a Place for Dad on Her Dresser
The Forty Dollars My Brother Took From Dad’s Bedroom Meant More to Our Family Than Either of Us Understood
Part 2 of 24
