The Watch with the A-Shaped Scar

Chloe snatched the Civic’s keys from her nightstand. “First, Miller’s Pawn. I’m buying the watch. After that, we’re going to Blackwood.”

I didn’t try to stop her. I had spent six years thinking I’d been a little kid who ruined something precious. Now I could give the watch back to the person it had belonged to all along.

At Miller’s Pawn, the whole purchase was over in minutes. The proprietor blinked when Chloe laid her saved tip money on the counter, but kept his questions to himself. He opened the case, lifted out the scratched Hamilton, and tucked it into a velvet pouch.

We headed north on Route 9. The trip lasted two hours, each minute dragging. Neat neighborhoods gave way to stained overpasses and abandoned industrial lots. A fine rain began to fall beneath a sky the color of a bruise.

The address from the phone bill led us to a three-story apartment block with peeling green walls and a fence around a bare concrete yard. Chloe left the Civic beside dented dumpsters, and we climbed the outdoor stairs with rain darkening our sleeves.

Room 204.

The door looked battered, and its brass numbers hung crooked. Chloe paused, her hand suspended for a beat, then knocked three times.

Nothing answered. She tried again, louder.

From inside came the grinding turn of a deadbolt. The door crept open.

A ghost stood in the narrow, dim entrance.

He matched Dad’s height and frame, right down to the broad shoulders and firm jaw. But he looked worn nearly to nothing. Gray covered his hair; deep lines cut across his tired face. A rough beard hid part of it. He leaned on a metal medical cane and struggled to breathe.

His eyes widened when they landed on Chloe, fear and confusion warring in them. Then he looked down at me.

I took the watch from my pocket and raised it where the weak hallway light could reach it. The crooked gouge near the bottom caught a dull shine.

Arlo stared. A broken sob shook him, and his hand lifted toward the watch, trembling.

“Helen sent you,” he said, his voice little more than a breath.

He backed into the apartment, still reaching as he pulled the door wider. His cane rattled against the cheap floor when his shaking hand struck it.

The room smelled of antiseptic, old tea, and sickness. A mattress sat on the floor beside a radiator that barely steamed. Prescription bottles and overdue bills crowded a folding table. There were no pictures or ornaments, nothing to suggest a home beyond the struggle to get through each day.

Chloe went in ahead of me, her worry overcoming her hesitation. I followed and eased the door shut. The deadbolt’s click sounded much too loud.

Arlo hardly glanced at Chloe. His tired gaze stayed on me and the watch in my hand.

“I went back to get it,” he murmured. “On Thursday. I had eighty dollars and asked the man to keep it for me, but he wouldn’t accept part of the price. He said a girl had already been asking about it.”

He looked toward Chloe. Fear showed plainly across his face, and I felt it tighten something in my chest. “Arthur sent you, didn’t he? He learned I used his name. He’s going to have me arrested.”

“Dad has no idea we came,” Chloe told him gently. She looked around at the bare, shabby room, then drew the velvet pouch from her jacket. “Mom didn’t send us, either. We recognized the scratch. Mason remembered it.”

Arlo gripped his cane and leaned against the table. The strength seemed to leave his legs; he sank into a faded chair and covered his face. What came out of him sounded like a sob tangled with a sigh, carrying years of grief.

I crossed the room and set the Hamilton on the folding table, beside a plastic organizer for his pills. It felt strange to have it back in my hands and stranger still to place it in his.

He touched the case with one finger, then followed the rough cut with his thumb. Dad had traced that same mark six years earlier, in our bathroom.

“The scratch never bothered me,” Arlo said softly. His mouth formed the beginning of a sad smile as he looked down at it. “Your mother brought me into the house in secret that day. It was ten below, and I’d been sleeping in my rusted Honda. She gave me something hot to eat, then told me I could shower.”

His eyes stayed on the watch, but his voice carried him somewhere far from that room. “I remember the day she let me in. I remember you were there, too. You were only five when you scratched it.”