Page 73 of The Time Keepers

Becky nodded. “Thank you,” she answered softly. “All these years, I wondered what had happened to Jack.” She managed to get out the words, not sharing with the women that she now realized there was no friend with a facial injury when Jack called—that it was him all along.She felt her stomach drop knowing she had caused him so much pain when he’d already suffered so much.

“I was never able to find out what happened to him, despite my efforts,” she explained. “Even after that first call, I knew he was alive, but I couldn’t ever locate him.”

She shook her head. “And all this time, he was right here … and then in the town next door.” She reached into her purse for a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “I don’t know how to feel about any of this,” she confessed. “It’s almost like you’re raising a corpse from the dead.”

Anh watched the young woman try to come to terms with the news she and Grace came to share.

“Miss,” she said slowly and carefully. “This Jack. He is such a good man. He did many courageous thing. But he tell me after all this time, you’re still sunshine at midnight for him.” Anh smiled just saying the words. “I never heard words like this before, to have sun during darkness. But it so beautiful, right?”

Grace smiled. “It really is a beautiful thought.”

“Thank you for telling me that,” Becky answered, her eyes still wet with tears. She looked down at her watch. “I have to get going,” she said, tapping her Timex with the thin leather band. “I’m so grateful for you telling me where Jack is.”

EPILOGUE

SHE DRIVES LATE AT NIGHT THROUGH THE TREE-LINED STREETSof Bellegrove, admiring the white houses with their picket fences and their neatly trimmed lawns. Windows glow with warm lanterns of light, yet she sees not a single soul, except for one lone woman sitting on a yellow porch swing outside her home. Wrapped in a pink robe, her face in her hands, she is weeping. It strikes her that even in this suburb of manicured perfection, human emotions bubble forth, that no one is immune to loneliness or grief.

Eventually, she finds the address she is looking for and parks her car on the street outside the watch store and gazes at the sign, THEGOLDENHOURS, written in old-fashioned green and bronze letters. The window is filled with clocks of various shapes and sizes. Some are tall grandfather clocks, and others are carved mantel ones displayed on wooden tables draped in red velvet cloth. A CLOSEDsign dangles on the doorknob, but deep into the back, a single light shines like a white beacon. Becky sits and grips the steering wheel, pondering if she has enough courage to get out of her car.

On the radio, the oldies channel plays a song they used to listen to together ten years before. The melodies “I Wish It Would Rain” and “Slip Away” are like a scrapbook to another time, before the broken engagement with a man she once unsuccessfully tried to replace Jack with, or the many nights where she wondered if she might end up never finding someone who cared for her as much as her first love, Jack Grady, did when they were back in Allentown High School.

On her wrist, she still wears the watch he gave her on that afternoon when they packed up his childhood home. There was a time after that last phone call when she had stopped wearing it, banishing it to her bedroom drawer. But then, a couple of years back, she put it back on again because the gift’s sentiment had been so beautifully earnest. There was something practical to her decision as well, for during her classes, she could glance down at the dial and tell the time quickly because the Roman numerals were so easy to read that she never had to let her students know she was looking at the time.

She wonders if the Jack in that workshop will ever be able to forgive her for the words she had so hastily said on the phone when he returned home injured and alone. How she hates to think that she hadn’t realized the fictitious friend he spoke of had been him all along. The truth was, she realizes now, that she should have answered differently. That she should have shown an open heart to his request regardless, but she was young and only thinking of herself and her modest living situation. Since the two women had come to see her at school, she has spent hours replaying that last conversation with Jack in her mind, wishing she could turn back time and do it all over so differently.

She steps out of the car and moves quietly toward the store. She lifts her wrist and raps on the door.

She hears Jack’s footsteps, the unlocking of the latch before she actually sees him. And when he stands there, his face half in darkness, and half in moonlight, she unclasps her watch and hands it to him.

“Hello. Can you help me with this?” she asks, lifting her eyes to take him in completely.

He is motionless as she steps closer; his face, a valley of red and pink flesh, is now revealed to her.

“It was given to me by a very special person some time ago.” She clears her throat and wipes away her tears. “A boy named Jack. Who I’ve been waiting forever to welcome home.”