The Watch with the A-Shaped Scar

Arlo raised his face toward me. Tears brightened his gray eyes, though none had fallen. “When I came out of the bathroom, you were near the sink,” he said. “Your mother’s hairpin was in your fist. You stared up at me, scared I’d yell. I didn’t.”

The hazy scraps of that afternoon came together in my mind. I recalled the warm, steamy bathroom, and a man crouched in front of me with damp hair from his shower.

“You wanted to know what I was making,” Arlo murmured. “You said you were drawing a star, though it leaned crooked. I told you it looked like an A. You smiled at me, Mason. You looked at me like I was a person, not a monster. After Clara died, nobody in my family had done that.”

He paused, his throat working in the stillness. “Then the front door opened.”

I remembered the noise that followed: voices raised, footsteps rushing, and Dad bursting into the hall. He seized Arlo’s wet coat and hauled him toward the exit.

Arlo’s eyes left mine and settled on the wall. “I didn’t use his name to cause trouble,” he said. “My kidneys are down to twelve percent. The bills for treatment keep piling up. Then an eviction warning showed up. I panicked. I needed enough to stay indoors another month. I hoped Helen would spot the watch in the shop window and understand I was in trouble.”

“We can help with your rent,” Chloe said, moving closer. Her voice was steady, though her face was not. “I have money saved. We’ll cover it.”

Arlo gave a slow shake of his head. “You can’t do that. If Arthur learns about this, he’ll take whatever little I have left. You don’t know how much hatred there is.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” someone said behind us.

I whirled toward the apartment entrance.

Dad stood in the open doorway, rainwater shining on his clothes. Mom was just behind him, pale-faced, her eyes swollen and red.

He was breathing hard. He must have driven the two hours from our suburb in a hurry. His khaki shorts and old navy polo were the same ones he’d worn at the hardware store. The polished Hamilton on his wrist gave its quiet tick.

Chloe moved in front of me at once, putting herself between Dad and me. He didn’t look our way. His gaze had fixed on the gray, thin man in the chair.

For several seconds nobody spoke. The radiator whispered, and rain rattled against the narrow window.

I studied Dad’s expression, expecting the anger I knew so well. I thought he’d demand his watch back, threaten the police, and try to restore order by force. I waited for the storm.

It never came. Instead, his face seemed to lose its shape.

He looked at Arlo’s shaking fingers, then the cane beside him. His eyes passed over the medicine bottles on the folding table and the worn, ashen face of his twin. The stiff bearing and commanding air fell away. He was simply a man looking at the brother he had once been young beside.

“Arthur,” Arlo whispered. He pulled back in his chair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to involve them. I can go. I’ll pack.”

Dad entered one careful step at a time. Fury was nowhere in his face. Only sorrow remained.

“Helen told me what you’d discovered,” he said. His voice had none of its familiar authority; it sounded frail. “She said you’d learned about Arlo and the watch.”

He moved closer, his attention falling to the card table. The scratched Hamilton lay on its cheap plastic top.

“I bought it back for him,” Chloe said, her voice breaking as she stood firm. “You can’t have him arrested. He’s sick, Dad. He’s your brother.”

Dad stopped and looked at Chloe, then at me, before turning back to Arlo.

“You think I made you leave because of a watch?” he asked. His voice cracked. It was a sound I had never heard from him before.

Arlo said nothing. His head stayed bowed, his shoulders curled inward with shame.

“When I got home from Chicago,” Dad continued, fighting to keep his breath even, “I stepped into the hall. I heard people talking in the bathroom. I looked inside and saw my five-year-old boy holding your hand.”

He turned his eyes to me. Deep sadness filled them. “You had hold of his hand, Mason. Then you looked up at him and smiled. You said, ‘Look, Dad. I made this for you.’”

Everything in my memory settled into place, as neatly as the last piece in a puzzle. I hadn’t only scratched the watch. At five, seeing my uncle’s identical face, I’d mistaken Arlo for my father—and called him Dad.