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The Time Keepers Chapter 25 36%
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Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

J ACK AND T OM HAVE WORKED THIS WAY FOR SEVERAL YEARS now, incorporating a natural rhythm into what works best for them. Theirs is a synchronized band of movements, as one of them enters the space just as the other is leaving it.

Jack softens when he walks through the threshold, and Hendrix trots in beside him. Jack isn’t quite sure what it is, but there is something to the space that enables him to shed his protective armor and the weight of his memories. He immediately feels at ease as he walks deeper into the workshop. Perhaps it’s the special light coming from the evening sky outside the shop’s windows or the soft ticking of the clocks beating in unison. Maybe it’s the sense of purpose Tom has given him by introducing him to the craft. But what is certain is that, unlike his apartment, where his memories plague him when he sleeps, in this workshop, he feels unburdened. He feels free.

Hendrix follows him into the back room and flops to the ground while Jack flips the radio on, the FM dial already tuned to his and Tom’s favorite station. Music fills the air as he sits down to work, breathing in the solitude like it’s oxygen.

The lush sounds of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” rolls into the background.

When he hears the lyrics about the kaleidoscope-eyed girl, a knot tightens in his throat.

And right then and there, just as he thought he was going to lose himself in his work—with the screwdrivers all lined up and the dust cloths, tweezers, and calipers primed for his use—she returns to him.

Becky.

She is now in the air. The memory of her invades him, penetrating his heart like a sharp blade. He looks down at Hendrix, with his long snout resting on his black, velvety paws. His large eyes look up at Jack as though he, too, senses a shift in the room. Perhaps he notices the change of his master’s heartbeat, as though it is a clock of its own. Perhaps it’s in his change in breathing. The song brings him back to a time when he held Becky’s face next to his own. Her eyes—they did dazzle like kaleidoscopes. Prisms of green-and-gold light.

Even though it has been years since he has seen her face up close, he can still shut his eyes and remember every detail.

Taped on the wall of the old workbench is a piece of a faded print that Tom’s father had placed there when he first opened the shop.

Sundials can measure the hours in the day and reservoirs every drop of water. But no one has ever invented an instrument to quantify love.

For Jack, it was an immeasurable calculation.

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