The Time Keepers

Chapter 58

CHAPTER 58

T HE LAST WEEK OF SUMMER WAS UPON THEM, AND EVERYTHING was pregnant with the “lasts,” as Grace liked to say. The “last” barbecue, the “last” trip to the beach, the “last” week to sleep in late.

The weather had suddenly lifted too. The oppressive heat of early July and August had given way to the first whiff of autumn in the air. “Smells like school is coming.” Grace raised her chin and sniffed the breeze. Behind her, B?o and Molly waited for her to unlock the station wagon’s back door so they could pile in and take up Tom’s invitation to show B?o all the different clocks and watches at the store.

“Oh, Mom, don’t be so corny,” Molly had said with a giggle. “You can’t smell school.”

There was a time not too long ago, perhaps even last year, that Molly would have indulged her and humored her playfulness. But with each day that passed, her youngest daughter was moving closer to being an adult and further away from being her baby. Just the other afternoon, Molly stood in the kitchen wearing a daisy-printed smocked top and green Danskin shorts. Her legs looked like they had grown two more inches over the break, and the shorts now barely covered her bottom.

“Those shorts won’t be fitting you next summer,” Grace appraised, in awe of how fast Molly was growing. “We should drop them off at the church thrift store before school starts.”

Molly had agreed but hadn’t pondered her mother’s observation more than a minute before she was asking if she could bring B?o to the Golden Hours. “I’d like to show him all the grandfather clocks Daddy has in his collection. Maybe even show him how to wind the clocks.”

Grace had agreed, thinking it would be a lovely expedition for B?o. Sister Mary Alice had mentioned that Anh and the other Vietnamese adults had started an ESL class at the local library. The visit to the store was a good way to keep the boy busy.

So today, Grace was making good on her promise, picking B?o up early from the motherhouse so he could eat lunch with Molly before they ventured over to the store.

The Golden Hours had always been a magical place for the children when they were younger. They loved how there were so many clocks of assorted measure, how certain dials had the image of the sun and the moon while others had more delicate borders with tiny rosebuds or arabesques.

They also delighted in the sound of the varying chimes every hour and learned quickly how their father had created a system to ensure that the small, interior space didn’t become a cacophony of competing sounds as each hour passed. Tom silenced some of the clocks on one week and released the chimes on others, so every one of them was subject to rotation, liberating its unique melody from its inner chamber.

“We’re here,” Grace hollered to the back as the three of them entered the store’s interior.

Tom stepped out from behind the curtain and smiled.

“Dad, can I show B?o how to crank the clocks?”

“Of course, honey.”

It was hard to mask his pleasure at her request. Winding the clocks had been a ritual Tom had delighted in as a child himself, one that he had happily passed down to Katie and Molly. It had also been the first task he’d given Jack when he came to work at the store, before he started to introduce the more complicated repairs that he wasn’t sure at that time Jack would ever be able to do.

He watched Molly go toward the corner to retrieve the stool the children always used to reach the crown of the clock, he felt he was finally able to see the big picture of what his father had always hoped the store would be.

“It’s a legacy I’m passing down,” his father said. “One day you’ll understand that the only thing in the world you wish you had more of isn’t money. It’s time.

“None of us will know how much time we actually have on this earth,” he added. “But I can assure you, son, your work here will make you appreciate how each minute pushes into the next and how quickly it moves, more than anyone else who does a different kind of job.”

His father had affectionately squeezed his arm when he said it, and Tom now felt his late father’s words soak into him. He didn’t expect either of his daughters to want to take over the store after he was gone, but Tom hoped that if they had a sense of appreciating how quickly one’s life sped forth, he still would have imparted something of value to them. And that was a legacy in itself.

Molly called out to B?o to follow her.

“First you have to find the crank key,” she instructed with an impressive air of confidence. “Every clock has its own one. Dad sells it with the clock.” Tom always had a little envelope taped to the back of each clock with its key.

Molly led B?o over to a tall clock carved out of walnut wood. Majestic and proud, it stood nearly eight feet tall. “This one has the Whittington chimes.” She sounded like she was teaching a class in school, proud of the knowledge she could share.

“You can never let the chimes fall to the bottom, it’s not good for the clock.” She pointed to the brass pendulum suspended on gold chains in the glass window box.

She wasn’t sure if B?o understood everything she was saying, so she tried to speak slowly and point with her hands.

“Here it is.” She took the key from the envelope taped in the back and handed it to B?o. “Now we use the crank to lift up the bells that power the clock.”

She climbed on top of the stool and pulled open the clock’s top glass window that protected the dial. She inserted the little key and began to turn it clockwise until the right weighted pendulum lifted. Once it was fully suspended, she put the key in the left hole and did the same.

She then took her finger to the brass pendulum in the center and gave it a little push so it would initiate the ticking again.

B?o took to the job instantly and was soon moving from clock to clock, making sure each one had been properly wound with its respective key.

“It’s almost three o’clock,” Grace announced, tapping her finger on her own wristwatch, the same one Tom had given to her years before on her late father-in-law’s instruction.

Molly knitted her hands. “Oh, B?o, you’re going to love this.”

She looked over at the tall presidential grandfather clock and waited until it was precisely three, when suddenly the space was filled with a symphony of chimes.

B?o’s smile was electric as the room exploded in melody.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Molly exclaimed with such glee in her voice. Seeing B?o’s reaction made her return to her own childhood memories of hearing the clock for the first time.

Tom approached Grace and put his arm around her.

“Did you hear I have ‘Aura Lee’ on the rotation this week, Gracie?” He gave her a flirtatious wink. “Do you remember that one, honey?”

Grace blushed in the children’s company. How could she forget the first time her husband had whispered the words “I love you” to her?

They had gone back to the watch store after Tom’s father had suggested his son pick out a watch for her. That evening, as she peered over the glass display case admiring the different antique timepieces, the melody of “Aura Lee” soon filled the air. Tom had pulled her to his chest as they began to dance to the clock’s bells. He then whispered in her ear “Do you know the melody of ‘Aura Lee’ is the same as Elvis Presley’s ‘Love Me Tender’?” He began singing the words.

Even so, many years later she could still remember how he whispered “I love you” over the soft sound of the chimes and how he had lifted her fingertips to his lips and kissed them gently, one by one, before kissing her more deeply on the mouth.

Her whole body warmed at the memory.

For as long as she knew Tom, she was aware how much the Golden Hours had helped those who had made it their life’s work. First her father-in-law, then her husband, and then Jack. Now she saw how her daughter was rediscovering its magic through showing B?o how each minute pushed one of the clock’s hands forward.

She smiled. What she wanted to tell Tom, but she’d wait until they were alone, was that his heart was the melody she loved most to hear. She listened to its beating against his chest every night, and it still filled her with wonder.