Chapter 7
My husband wore that watch for forty years.
Its face was scratched, and its leather strap had been replaced so many times neither of us remembered the original color. He used to set it beside the bed each night, then reach for it before he put on his glasses in the morning.
I had wanted Emma to have it someday.
I called Claire once.
She answered immediately. “Are you ready to talk?”
“Where is your father’s watch?”
Silence.
“You told me it was being repaired,” I said.
“It was.”
“The shop has no record of it.”
“There are other shops.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t have the information with me.”
I looked at the empty case.
“Please send me the name by tonight.”
“Mom, with everything happening, you’re going to accuse me over a watch?”
“It was important to your father.”
“It’s important to me too.”
“Then tell me where it is.”
She ended the call.
I wanted to drive to her house and demand an answer. Instead, I called Ms. Rivera. She told me to make a record of the conversation. Emma helped me search my messages for the day Claire took the watch. We found one in which she promised to get the strap repaired.
Claire sent no shop name that night.
The next morning, Ms. Rivera asked Claire’s attorney about the watch. By late afternoon, we had an answer: Claire had taken it to a dealer who bought used jewelry and watches. She had sold it seven months earlier.
I sat at my table with the phone to my ear.
“Can we get it back?”
“The dealer still has it,” Ms. Rivera said. “He’s agreed to hold it while ownership is sorted out.”
I thanked her and hung up.
Seven months. Claire had looked me in the eye for seven months while telling me it was being repaired.
Emma came downstairs and saw my face. I told her.
She sat beside me.
“I can’t understand why she’d sell Grandpa’s watch,” she said.
“I can understand needing money,” I answered. “I can’t understand choosing that and then letting me keep asking for it.”
We went together to the dealer a few days later. He showed me the watch in its worn leather band. I identified the engraving inside the case, the initials my husband’s parents had given him.
The dealer apologized. Claire had presented herself as its owner. He provided his records to the investigator and arranged for the watch to be returned.
When I held it again, I cried.
I wore it home over the cuff of my sweater. It was too large for my wrist, but I wanted to feel its weight.
That evening, June came over. She took one look at the watch and understood.
“She sold it?”
“Yes.”
June closed her eyes. “I remember him wearing that at your wedding.”
“It was a gift from his parents.”
She sat with me while I told her how we had found it. Then she asked if I wanted her to come to any future meetings.
“I might,” I said.
“I will be there if you ask.”
For once, she offered without trying to decide for me.
The investigation led to formal charges related to the loan application. Claire’s attorney told Ms. Rivera that Claire intended to accept responsibility. The sale of the watch was addressed too. I gave an account of what had happened and asked that it be returned, which it was.
I could not stop worrying about Emma. Her mother was facing public consequences, and her father’s business had closed.
One night, I found her in the garden after dark.
“Are you staying here because you think I need protecting?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m staying because I like being here.”
“You can go home whenever you want.”
“I know.”
She turned toward me. “Grandma, you keep making sure I can choose. I wish you’d believe you can choose too.”
I smiled. “I’m practicing.”
Emma took my hand and led me inside.
A week later, Claire asked to meet me with Ms. Rivera present. I thought about saying no. I had not seen her since she stood on my driveway and told me her father would have helped.
I asked Ms. Rivera what the meeting would involve. Claire wanted to apologize before her court date. There would be no agreement for me to sign.
I told Emma I was going.
“You don’t owe her a meeting,” she said.
“I know. I want to hear what she has to say.”
At Ms. Rivera’s office, Claire rose when I entered. She looked tired. Her hands were empty.
“Mom,” she said.
May you like
I sat down.
For the first time in years, she waited for me to speak first.
