Scott called again two days later.
I was at home when his name appeared on my phone.
For a moment, I considered letting it ring.
I was tired of conversations that began with an excuse and ended with me feeling responsible for his decisions.
But I answered.
"Hi."
"How's Mom?"
"She's all right."
He was quiet.
Then he asked whether she had learned anything about the note.
I told him that Mr. Cole was helping her understand it.
"Does it have something to do with money?"
I frowned.
"Why would you ask that?"
"I don't know. You said there was a lawyer."
"Because Ed found a document inside the watch."
Scott let out a slow breath.
"I didn't know there was anything in there."
"You've said that."
"I mean it, Jen."
I believed him.
But his ignorance didn't make what he had done acceptable.
He had not sold the watch because he needed to know what it contained.
He had sold it because he wanted money.
That distinction mattered.
"I wish you'd asked Mom before taking it," I said.
"I know."
"You could have asked me for help, too."
He didn't answer.
I remembered Dad paying his debts again and again.
I remembered how often Scott had promised to change.
I had once thought Dad was too forgiving.
Now I wondered whether he had simply understood that loving someone did not always mean knowing how to help them.
Scott cleared his throat.
"Has Mom said anything about me coming over?"
"Not yet."
"Would you ask her?"
"I will."
We ended the call without arguing.
I went to Mom's house that afternoon.
She was sorting laundry in the bedroom.
The watch remained beside Dad's glasses.
The velvet box was open, and the polished steel casing caught the light from the window.
I told her Scott had called.
She folded a towel and placed it on the bed.
"What did he want?"
"He asked how you were. He wants to know whether he can visit."
Mom stopped folding.
For a moment, I thought she would refuse.
Then she sat on the edge of the bed.
"I haven't decided."
I told her she didn't have to decide that day.
She looked at the watch.
"I still get angry when I think about what he did."
"I know."
"He knew where I kept it."
Her voice remained quiet.
"He knew I wasn't ready to put your father's things away."
I sat beside her.
Mom had never been someone who needed expensive gifts.
Dad could bring home a small bunch of flowers, and she would put them in a glass jar on the kitchen table.
He could repair something she had been struggling with, and she would thank him as if he had done something extraordinary.
She valued the attention behind the gesture.
Scott had ignored that.
He had seen a watch and thought about its price.
Mom had seen a piece of her life with Dad.
"I don't know if I can forgive him yet," she said.
"You don't have to pretend you can."
She nodded.
Then she asked me whether I thought Dad would have forgiven Scott.
I considered the question carefully.
Dad had forgiven him many times before.
But I couldn't know what Dad would have done in this situation.
"I think he would have wanted Scott to admit what he did," I said.
Mom looked at me.
"And then?"
"Then he'd probably have told him to make it right."
She gave a small, sad smile.
"That sounds like your father."
We sat quietly for a while.
I wanted to tell her that Scott had admitted he was wrong.
But I didn't want to make his apology sound bigger than it was.
He had acknowledged the mistake.
He had not returned the watch himself.
He had not been the one to search for it.
Ed had been the one who recognized that something about the watch deserved attention.
He had chosen to investigate.
He had chosen to find the family.
Scott's decision had brought the watch out of our home, but it was Ed's decision that brought it back.
That difference mattered, too.
Mom finally closed the velvet box.
"Tell Scott he can call me," she said. "I may be ready to talk."
I promised I would.
As I left the bedroom, I looked back at the dresser.
The glasses and watch sat together.
The empty space that had haunted Mom for three months was gone.
But I understood now that the object itself had never been the whole problem.
Scott had broken her trust.
Dad had left a message.
And we were trying to understand both things without allowing one to erase the other.
I had spent so much time wanting everything returned to the way it was before the funeral.
That wasn't possible.
We could recover the watch.
We could examine the note.
We could decide what forgiveness meant for our family.
But none of us could go back to the morning before Dad died.
That was the part I was finally learning to accept.
Click here to continue reading: PART 15: The Date on the Note Kept Bringing Mom Back to a Year She Had Almost Forgotten, and I Began Listening Differently
The Forty Dollars My Brother Took From Dad’s Bedroom Meant More to Our Family Than Either of Us Understood
Part 14 of 24
