The Time Keepers

Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

N O ONE IN B ELLEGROVE EVER FORGOT THE AFTERNOON B OBBY ’ S parents received the news. They all heard about it, even before his name was read aloud on the radio a few days later. The neighbors had all held their breath on that rainy day in March, when the military vehicle pulled up to the O’Rourkes’ home and two soldiers dressed in uniforms solemnly walked toward the front door.

The ghost of Bobby O’Rourke still lingered in the small town’s air. Adele, his older sister, lived two streets away and had named her son after him.

Grace knew her husband thought about his dead buddy often, for it was because of Bobby he had learned how life was shaped by random accidents. That one incident could alter the lives of several people forever. He confided in her that there were times, when he drove past that Ace parking lot, he contemplated how different things might have been had it been Bobby who had skidded out and busted his leg and not him.

“We wouldn’t have met had you not gotten hurt,” she reminded him. It was true. If he hadn’t had been left with a limp that made him too self-conscious to dance at that mixer in Queens, she might not have sat down next to him that night.

Grace had left Ireland with a suitcase containing two good dresses, one skirt, three blouses, two pairs of nylons, one pair of black pumps, and a navy mohair coat. A family in Queens had sponsored her as a nanny to help with their three children, all of whom were under the age of five. She was terribly homesick when she arrived in the States. Not because she missed her family back home, as she had already been away from them at the Catholic school she’d boarded at since she was thirteen, but for Ireland itself. The lush green grass and meadows full of delicate red poppies and wild heather. The stretches of blue sky, the sunlight that peeked through the daily showers of rain. Her foreignness was only intensified by the unfamiliarity of the cement and asphalt of Sunnyside, Queens. The endless rows of apartment buildings. The parks that had playgrounds for children but no lawn in sight. Still, she found joy on the days she traveled into glamorous Manhattan, where she could lose herself in the museums she loved. The enormous Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side was her favorite refuge. There, the collection of butterflies with their fragile wings and brightly colored markings reminded her that beauty could be both delicate and strong.

Her friend Fiona, another transplant from Ireland, told her about a social sponsored by the Irish Club of New York. Grace initially hadn’t wanted to go, as she had no desire to stand around drinking warm punch while the men offered whiskey from metal flasks in their breast pockets.

But Grace loved to dance. So when Fiona mentioned they’d have a live band and the lead singer was from Galway, no less, she couldn’t refuse.

She danced for hours. Her face flushed, her blue cotton dress clinging to her skin. While one of the boys went to get her a drink, she sat down to catch her breath and she found herself next to Tom. He hadn’t gotten up once all night to dance, even though she had caught him staring at her on more than one occasion.

“Not much of a dancer, are you?” Grace asked, her voice sounding more confident than normal, as the exhilaration of the music seemed to give her more courage. She was drawn to his dark brown curls and hazel eyes. There was also something genuine about him. His sports jacket was rumpled, his shirt untucked, but when he lifted his head to smile at her, she felt her heart leap inside her chest.

“Can’t dance. Busted leg,” he said, pointing toward his left shoe. “My friend Lewis dragged me here. He’s a senior at Fordham. It gave him a kick to bring his only Jewish friend to an Irish dance.”

Grace smiled. She had never met anyone Jewish before she moved to New York, and she loved the exotic fabric of so many different ethnicities outside her doorstep in Queens. As Grace looked over at Tom, she thought he seemed sweet and handsome. Lewis, on the other hand, was sweating profusely over the punch bowl. “Looks like Lewis is finding the cooling system here more challenging than college.”

Tom laughed. His friend might be smarter than he was, but at least Tom’s shirt was dry.

“Does it hurt?” Grace eyed the khaki pant leg of his trousers.

“Not anymore, just makes me look clumsy. Doesn’t quite work like it should.”

Whenever people asked them how they met, it was one of the only things in their marriage that they remembered exactly the same way. She had taken his hand later that evening and gently led him to the dance floor. Grace didn’t twirl or kick up her legs as she had earlier with the faster dances. Instead, as the band played a slow ballad, she guided Tom’s hands around her waist and let him pull her close. And as he steadied himself to her rhythm, his self-consciousness fell away.

Weeks later, when he mentioned to his parents that he was dating Grace, their first instinct was that their son was rebelling, yet again, by bringing home a blond, blue-eyed Catholic girlfriend, straight from Ireland, no less.

They assumed his attraction to the girl would wear off and their relationship would eventually just run its course. But the young couple soon proved them wrong, as their connection only grew stronger.

“She came here for a new life, just like your own parents.” Tom finally summoned up his nerve to confront his mother, who had yet to invite Grace for dinner. “She lost her sister at a young age, so maybe I’m drawn to her because she embodies the Golden family philosophy that you have to find a way to move forward.”

His voice was strong and full of conviction. “So, Mom, please don’t tell me that we come from two different worlds.”

As the newspapers blazed with headlines of societal change, the space program’s goal of putting a man on the moon, the confirmation of the first Black Supreme Court Justice, and rising anti-war protests, Tom’s courtship with Grace was swept into a wave of progressive thinking that his parents couldn’t ignore. And while his mother worried out loud about her future grandson having a baptism instead of a bris, and his father’s heart was broken by the loss of nearly all Jewish life in Europe and hoped to somehow replenish the number, both of his parents eventually warmed to Grace despite her different religion. They came to recognize her good values and her deep appreciation of family. Harry loved her caring nature and the homemade shortbread in a recycled blue cookie tin that she brought to their house. And when Grace asked if she could learn how to make Rosie’s brisket, it lifted his mother’s spirits to know this young woman was interested in traditions other than her own.

His father mentioned he’d noticed that Grace never wore a watch. The only adornment he could find on her was the simple saint’s medallion hanging from her neck.

One evening, after Grace helped clear the dishes, Harry gave Tom the keys to the shop. “Go pick out a watch for the pretty girl,” he instructed, winking at his son. “She deserves something lovely to go along with that smile.”

Grace blushed. “It’s not necessary, Mr. Golden. You’ve already been so generous with having me over for so many Friday-night dinners.” She patted the waistband of her skirt.

“Go on, now,” Rosie said as she smiled and pushed them both toward the door.

Tom pulled Grace’s wool coat from the closet and slid it over her shoulders. “It’s a brisk walk or a short drive to the store.… Which do you prefer?”

“The brisk walk, of course!”

“Just no motorcycles!” Rosie called out from the kitchen.

“No, Mrs. Golden, I would never!” Grace’s giggle filled the hall.

As he slid the key into the store’s front door and ushered Grace inside, her face lit up when she saw all the antique clocks. “This one’s from England,” Tom said, pointing to a small brass carriage clock. “And this one is French Revival.” Her eyes danced from one clock to the next. At the glass case he looked for a watch that would be just perfect for her and found one on a black grosgrain ribbon. “Is it too dressy?” he asked as he began to wrap it around her wrist.

“It’s so elegant,” she whispered. And when she lifted her head upward to him, he kissed her in the moonlight. His heart raced at the touch of her lips.