The Time Keepers

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1 Long Island, 1979

G RACE G OLDEN WOULD NEVER KNOW WHY, ON THAT SUNNY afternoon in late May, she had chosen to walk down Gypsum Street after Mass instead of her usual route to the grocery store. Maple Avenue had always been the fastest way from Saint Bartholomew’s to Kepler’s Market.

Her husband, Tom, believed Grace picked Gypsum Street because the cherry blossoms there were at their peak. That was the thing about his wife, he explained. She’d always go out of her way to encounter something beautiful. But neither of them could have anticipated on that fine spring day, as Grace’s heels rhythmically struck the sidewalk, her shopping list tucked inside her leather purse, that she would notice a little boy curled up against the side of a building. Sleeping on the hard cement, his body was tucked so tightly, he reminded Grace of a small whelk nestled into its shell.

She stopped and hovered over him. Then she leaned down to nudge him.

“Are you lost, love?” The lilt of her Irish accent, still detectable after years of living in New York, floated through the air. “Let me help you up,” she offered her hand.

But the boy remained fixed in a fetal position, his arms locked even tighter around himself and his feet inched closer to his bottom. One of his tennis shoes had a hole in its rubber sole. The other was missing its laces.

She still could not see his face, only the tiny edge of his ear and the shock of straight black hair.

“Please.”

His head rose slightly, revealing his dark eyes, heart-shaped lips, and small nose.

It was the face of a child, frightened and alone.