I barely remember driving back.
When I entered the house, Mom was washing dishes.
She turned around, surprised.
“Rae? Why are you home? Are you sick?”
Then she noticed my expression.
“Rachel? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing bad, Mom. I promise.”
But tears were already streaming down my face.
She rushed toward me.
“Talk to me.”
“Please sit down.”
She looked frightened.
But she obeyed.
I placed the envelope on the kitchen table.
“Remember the woman with the twins I told you about?”
“Of course.”
“She came back after I left work.”
I removed the white cloth.
Mom looked confused.
“What is that?”
I unfolded it.
And there lay the watch.
In the morning sunlight.
Still ticking.
My mother went perfectly still.
Her eyes widened.
Then she reached toward it with one trembling hand.
She touched the leather band.
Lifted the watch.
Turned it over.
Read the engraving.
And the strongest woman I’ve ever known began to cry.
Not quietly.
Not politely.
She pressed the watch against her mouth, and twenty-two years of grief seemed to break open all at once.
I went around the table and wrapped my arms around her.
We held each other for a long time.
Finally, she whispered,
“Where did you find it?”
“There’s a letter.”
I read the entire thing to her.
The Kentucky diner.
The frightened girl.
The pancakes.
The bus station.
The ticket to Georgia.
The four dollars remaining in Dad’s wallet.
And the watch he’d given away.
When I reached the part where Dad joked that June would be angry for an hour, Mom laughed through her tears.
“That foolish man.”
“Were you angry?” I asked.
“He never told me.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“He told me the watch was in his truck. Later, when I asked again, he claimed he’d left it with a jeweler for repairs.”
She looked down at it.
“Then the accident happened. I thought it had disappeared somewhere in the snow.”
Her voice shook.
