I had wanted to thank Ed properly ever since he came to Mom's house.
The first time, everything had happened so quickly.
He had arrived with the watch.
He had explained how he found the note.
Then Mr. Cole had opened his briefcase, and Mom had sat down on the porch step.
There had been little room for anything else.
A few days later, I went to the secondhand shop on the avenue.
I didn't bring the watch.
Mom wanted to keep it at home, and I didn't want to risk moving it unnecessarily.
I simply wanted to speak with Ed.
The shop was smaller than I had imagined.
There were shelves of household items, a few pieces of furniture, and glass cases containing watches and jewelry.
The counter had scratches along its edge.
Behind it, Ed was arranging a group of small objects.
He looked up when I approached.
"Can I help you?"
I introduced myself as Harold Brennan's daughter.
Recognition crossed his face.
"How's your mother?"
"She's doing all right. Thank you for asking."
I told him I had come to thank him for returning the watch.
He looked uncomfortable with the attention.
"I couldn't have sold it after I found that paper."
I asked him why he had opened the back in the first place.
He explained that the seal had seemed unusual.
He had handled plenty of old watches, but this one looked as though someone had deliberately closed the casing.
He had become curious.
"I wanted to see what was inside," he said. "I didn't expect to find anything like that."
I looked around the shop.
There were watches everywhere.
Some looked new.
Others had scratched faces and worn straps.
I wondered how many of them had belonged to people whose families still remembered them.
Ed followed my gaze.
"Most things come in with a story," he said. "Sometimes you hear it. Sometimes you don't."
I thought about Dad's watch.
Scott had given Ed a simple explanation.
It belonged to his father.
That was true, but it wasn't the whole story.
Ed had recognized that the watch itself deserved closer attention.
Then he had discovered the note.
He could have treated it as an oddity.
He could have put the watch in the display case and allowed someone else to buy it.
Instead, he had stopped.
He had looked for the family.
He had brought a lawyer because he understood that the paper might matter.
Those choices had given us back something we had almost lost.
"Did you have any trouble finding us?" I asked.
"Some," he said. "I had to work from what I knew about the person who sold it and the name he'd given me."
He didn't describe every step.
I didn't press him.
The important thing was that he had found us.
I thanked him again.
He shook his head.
"You don't need to thank me for doing what I thought was right."
"Maybe not," I said. "But I wanted to."
He smiled.
Then he asked whether Mom had been able to understand the note.
I told him she was working with Mr. Cole.
We were trying not to make assumptions before we knew what the document actually meant.
Ed seemed relieved.
"Good. That paper deserves to be handled carefully."
I agreed.
Before I left, I looked at the watches in the glass case.
One had a steel casing similar to Dad's.
Its strap was worn, and the glass had a small scratch near the edge.
For a moment, I imagined Dad's watch sitting there with a price tag attached.
Someone might have bought it without knowing its history.
They might have worn it for years.
They might have thrown it into a drawer when it stopped working.
The note could have remained hidden.
Our family might never have known it existed.
I thanked Ed one final time and left the shop.
On the drive to Mom's house, I thought about how easily the story could have ended differently.
Scott had taken the watch without asking.
Ed had bought it without knowing its full significance.
A small decision to examine the sealed back had changed what happened next.
I couldn't claim that Ed knew what he would find.
He didn't.
He had simply paid attention when something seemed unusual.
That was enough to make a difference.
When I reached Mom's house, she was in the bedroom.
The watch was beside Dad's glasses.
I told her I had visited Ed.
She listened while I described the shop and our conversation.
"I'm glad he took the time," she said.
"So am I."
She looked at the velvet box.
"Your father would have appreciated that."
I thought about Dad's own habits.
He had worked carefully.
He had kept things in order.
He had believed that small details mattered.
Maybe that was why the watch had survived so long.
Maybe that was why Ed had noticed something unusual about it.
I couldn't know whether Dad would have liked the new leather strap.
I imagined he would have inspected the stitching and checked that the buckle worked.
Then he would have put the watch on and carried on with his day.
The thought made me smile.
For the first time in a while, thinking about the watch brought me a memory that wasn't tied to its disappearance.
It reminded me of Dad.
Not the secret.
Not the theft.
Just Dad, turning his wrist to check the time.
Click here to continue reading: PART 20: Mom Began to Accept That the Watch Could Hold a Secret Without Erasing Fifty-One Years of the Life Dad Had Shared With Her
The Forty Dollars My Brother Took From Dad’s Bedroom Meant More to Our Family Than Either of Us Understood
Part 19 of 24
