The Time Keepers

Chapter 54

CHAPTER 54

J ACK HESITATED FOR MORE THAN A FEW SECONDS WHEN T OM invited him to Sunday dinner. This time there would be two other guests besides him.

“Do you remember me telling you about that little boy, B?o, that Grace found on Maple Street?” Tom mentioned casually. “Well, she’s been volunteering at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs … helping him and his aunt learn English.”

“That’s kind of her.… Grace always tries to do the right thing.”

Tom laughed. “That she does.… anyway, we wanted to extend the invite to you, too. She’s making something called ph?. Some kind of noodle soup, I think.”

Jack put down his calipers on the watch he was working on, stalling for time while trying to come up with an excuse not to come.

Tom sensed Jack’s discomfort.

“I know what you’re thinking, but they’re from the south part of Vietnam … so that makes them the good guys, right? That’s why they were able to get sponsored here in the first place because they fought alongside the Americans.”

Jack forced a smile. In the years since he returned home, he no longer thought about the war in such simple terms. He might have arrived in Vietnam thinking the war was like a John Wayne movie where it was easy to divide the good guys from the bad, but the war had been nothing more than a senseless and futile effort made by the government with far too many lives lost. The only thing Jack knew for certain was all the pain that still lingered. The North, the South, the American GIs, all of them had suffered.

“I get that, Tom … but you know it’s more about this …” Jack lifted a finger toward his face. “It’s kind hard to meet new people, if you know what I mean …”

“I understand, but Grace has been practicing making that soup with Anh and I think it would mean a lot to have you there.”

“I’ve been in a more solitary mood than normal lately.… I’m just not sure I’m up to it this weekend.”

Hendrix, curled up underneath the workshop table, lifted his snout and let out a little snort, as if to question whether his master was actually telling the truth.

“Well, think about it, Jack. You don’t need to tell me today. Sleep on it and let me know in a day or two.” Tom stood up and put his tools back in the drawer.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He bent down and gave Hendrix a rub.

Jack heard the door close behind Tom as he headed back home to his family, leaving him and Hendrix alone in the back workshop. He let out a deep sigh and Hendrix lifted his head, studied his master for a second, and then returned to his curled position on the floor.

“What do you want to hear, buddy?” He glanced over at the dog. “Don’t got an answer? Guess it’s left for me to decide …” Jack reached for a shoebox he kept full of his favorite cassettes. He pulled out a tape of Dobie Gray’s album Drift Away and popped it into the small boom box on the worktable. The title song, with its hopeful lyrics, soon floated through the air. The music began to relax him, and the discomfort of the dinner invitation started to lessen with each note.

In front of him rested an old Elgin watch from the 1950s whose owner had brought in for a repair.

It was evident it had been a watch much loved. The cognac-colored leather band had been softened and creased with age; a less sentimental person would have replaced it years ago with a new one. The gold casing had acquired a lovely patina, too, and engraved on the back was an inscription that read simply Love , with scripted initials beneath.

Jack ran his finger over the engraving. He always relished reading the words that people chose to make permanent on a timepiece. It seemed almost sacred to him, the same way it felt when he would come across a tree during one of his late-night walks and see two sets of initials carved into the trunk, a fossilization of someone else’s adoration.

The Elgin watch was a mechanical one, so it wasn’t an easy repair that simply required a change in the quartz battery. He contemplated if perhaps it needed to have its gears stripped and cleaned. He pulled the magnifying visor down over his head and slowly began to unscrew the back of the case and then laid it on the table, revealing the insides of the watch.

The internal mechanisms of a watch were beautiful to him: the gear train, the escapement and balance wheel. All the working calipers, framed by the bridge, came together in an enviable harmony. Jack felt as if he was peering into a perfect world when he opened up a watch, one where one component fit perfectly into the next, where everything merged to make two linked hands move ahead.

He saw this beauty all through the lens of his one good eye. And even when a watch didn’t work as it should, there was the expectation that it could still be resurrected with the proper care. But could a life be as well?

Nothing in his life had ever come together like the workings of a watch. But while the sadness and isolation of his life had gutted him prior to meeting Tom and his family, Jack had realized just this evening why he no longer saw his life as a tragedy. The invitation to Sunday night dinner was in fact not offered out of pity, as he once believed. Instead, he had the impression that when Tom asked him to come, he wanted him there because he and Grace now considered him part of their family.

That Sunday evening, rather than the usual round roast or baked chicken, Grace set the table with large soup bowls and chopsticks collected from all the times they had ordered in Chinese food from Charlie Suey’s. The house smelled of new flavors and scents. Hours earlier, she and Anh had taken the old station wagon to Queens, where she’d lived before marrying Tom. There she knew they could find all the ingredients they needed for Anh’s recipe. Anh had written out her shopping list in Vietnamese.

“Remind me again what we’re getting for tonight?” she’d asked.

“Rice noodle. Garlic. Coriander …” Ahn had practiced with Sister Mary the day before to remember the English translations for the ingredients.

Grace had smelled some of Anh’s cooking at the motherhouse, and it always made her mouth water. “It all sounds wonderful,” she said. “I can’t wait to taste what you make tonight.”

“I am happy to cook for you and your family,” Anh grinned. She patted the shopping list with her hand.

She felt almost giddy with the windows rolled down, the breeze rippling through both their hair. Grace caught Anh smiling as she looked out at the changing scenery, the rows of suburban houses being replaced by two-family homes, redbrick apartment buildings and storefronts that reflected the neighborhood’s rich immigrant community. Grace pointed to a pub next to an Indian restaurant that had an Irish flag in one of its windows. “I used to go there with my girlfriends,” she laughed. “I’m glad ol’ Malachy’s is still around.”

A few minutes later, Grace spotted the sign for Lo’s Market. “Here we are.” She slowed the car and pulled into a parking spot just in front.

Anh looked at the sign. “This store we go to, it owned by Vietnamese?”

“It’s actually Chinese,” Grace clarified. “But I called this morning, and they said they have your noodles and spices, too.”

The two women got out of the car and walked inside. In the past, it was Grace who’d always taken charge whenever they stepped through the threshold of Kepler’s. But now she walked behind Anh, who floated confidently through the store’s narrow aisles, her fingers combing through the bushels of familiar produce and herbs. She smiled as she lifted a small knob of ginger root to her nose.

“This place very good,” she told Grace as she eyed the stack of cellophane vermicelli noodles on the shelf. “We can make ph? just like back home.”

Now the Golden house was filled with the scents steaming off from the rich broth that Anh had showed Grace how to make when they’d returned from the Asian grocery store.

Jack was drinking a cold beer with Tom in the living room, and a few minutes later the doorbell rang. It was Anh, who had gone back to the motherhouse an hour earlier to get B?o.

“We made pounded sweet bean and rice treats with the Sisters yesterday.” Anh offered Grace a tin filled with the dessert. “We have full Vietnamese meal now,” she said, smiling.

“That’s so kind of you, Anh. Thank you,” Grace said, taking the tin and walking her toward the living room where Tom and the others were waiting. Katie was still not back from her job, but Molly rushed over to greet B?o.

“Well, you know our Molly … and Katie will be home soon.” Grace pushed a cheeriness into her voice. “And this is our friend Jack. He works with Tom at the store.”

Anh stepped forward and proudly offered a handshake. Her eyes did not react even when they registered the disfigurement on Jack’s left side. She felt the warmth and strength in the man’s grip flood through her.

B?o swiveled around after greeting Molly and seemed to ponder for a moment the man who stood rigid in the living room, staring out at him with one good eye and a face etched with scars. His eyes lifted from the ground and traced Jack’s silhouette in its entirety.

“Hello, sir. It’s nice to meet you,” he articulated his words with careful, practiced diction. Dressed in a checked button-down shirt and khaki pants that hit him above the ankle, B?o extended his hand. Jack grasped it and shook it firmly.

“It is a pleasure, young man,” Jack said softly. He was surprised how much emotion welled inside him from such a simple gesture. But there was something about seeing two children, both from two different worlds, standing next to each other and bonded in friendship, that filled Jack with an emotion he hadn’t felt since he’d left Foxton Elementary: a beautiful feeling of hope.

The steaming bowls of broth brimming with ribbons of rice noodles, cilantro leaves, and thin slices of beef were placed down cheerily by Grace and Molly.

Jack sat down at the table. “It certainly smells delicious.”

“Anh showed Mom how to do everything,” Molly chirped. “We need some new dishes around here, right Dad?” She dipped her head closer and inhaled the scent of ginger, clove, and coriander wafting off the surface, then reached for the lime wedge to squeeze into the soup and a few bean sprouts. Anh had told her to add both before taking her first sip of the broth.

Tom settled into his chair. “Well, I’m excited. This will be my first time eating Vietnamese food.”

“Please,” Anh said now standing at the front of the table with Grace and smiling as she saw Molly take the lime and sprouts. “No good basil at store and beef not cut just right, but we make as good as we can.”

Jack considered mentioning that he had been lucky enough to taste ph? a few times but decided against it. Instead, he pulled his chopsticks apart and then looked over warmly at Grace, then Anh. “Thank you, ladies, for inviting me tonight. It looks like you both worked so hard.…” He glanced over at Katie’s empty seat at the table. “I hope Katie isn’t going to miss it.”

“She’s just running late. They had a lifeguard meeting at the club she had to go to,” Tom answered. “Nothing to worry about. Unless we eat her share, right?” Tom looked over to his wife and smiled. “Really, honey, it looks and smells great.”

The thing about Jack was that even with only one good eye, he still had a keen ability to pick up small details from other people’s behavior. When Katie finally bounded into the room, he noticed she barely looked at anyone when she plopped down in her seat.

“I’m famished,” she groaned as Grace got up to bring her a bowl of ph?. Within seconds, she had taken her spoon (she remained the only one at the table who didn’t even attempt to use the chopsticks Grace had provided). Tom had given up after a few awkward attempts to shovel the noodles in his mouth, but Molly and Grace were slowly getting the hang of it.

The little boy, however, had lifted his head several times from his bowl to look at Jack. It wasn’t something that bothered Jack as much as it used to. As a matter of fact, part of him preferred people who were willing to lift their eyes toward him, rather than purposefully avert them.

“Will B?o be in the same grade as you?” Jack asked.

“Yes,” Molly answered before B?o could reply.

“They’ll have tutoring at school,” Grace added. “But he’s already doing so well.” She looked over at him and smiled. “I’d like to think it was meant to be that afternoon I found B?o.” She glanced at the opposite of the table to where Anh was. “We wouldn’t be having such a nice dinner like this, if I hadn’t.”

Jack caught sight of Katie rolling her eyes.

Grace noticed too, and he watched her face redden.

“Life’s kinda like that, right?” Jack pushed into the conversation awkwardly. “Meeting Tom that day at the VA hospital, that sure made my life a whole lot better.…”

“Aw, come on, now.” Tom chuckled and lifted his beer in Jack’s direction. “Let’s not go overboard. I’m just happy to have you now as a buddy.” He took a swig of his drink. “And let’s not forget you can repair even the most pain-in-the-ass watch better than anyone I know.”

Something in B?o’s face flickered. Jack saw it like a recognition of something. It lit up the little boy’s whole face.

He tapped his wrist. “You fix watch?”

Jack’s eyes studied B?o.

“I do,” he answered. “I work in Tom’s shop.”

Jack squinted at the boy’s wrist and thought he saw a horseshoe-shaped scar, but he wasn’t sure if it was a trick of his impaired vision.

“We saw it other day. We look in window.” Anh smiled. “I learn later this is the Goldens’ family shop. You have many beautiful things.”

“You make them new again?” Curiosity spread on B?o’s face.

“Well, actually, yes.” He lifted a finger toward the bad side of his face. “I only have one good eye, but I can still see up close. And I use a magnifying glass, too.” To better explain his words, he pretended to bring something imaginary up to his one good eye and squinted.

“B?o’s father was good at fixing things, too,” Anh added. “My husband no such much, but he was better farmer.”

The boy smiled and nodded. “Radios. Not watch.”

Jack’s heart constricted in his chest.

Just the mention of B?o’s father working on radios back in Vietnam made him remember the radio he had carried strapped to his back, and the final moments of him taking the hand receiver from Lieutenant Bates just before the terrible explosion.

“You all right, Jack?” Tom looked concerned. “You’re looking kind of pale.…”

Jack took a few seconds to reply. When he finally looked up from his bowl of soup, Molly was beside him offering him a glass of water.

Jack accepted the glass and swallowed hard.

“Yeah,” he answered. He felt the flashbacks begin to settle. “I was just thinking about how it takes a certain type of person to have the patience to fix things. Not everyone has that, you know? The desire to make what’s broken right again.”

Jack’s words floated over the women at the table, none of them registering the sentiment. But Tom looked down, acknowledging them quietly, and the little boy also nodded, his eyes burning bright.