The Time Keepers

Chapter 63

CHAPTER 63

B ?O PROMISED A NH AND THE S ISTERS OF O UR L ADY Q UEEN OF Martyrs that he would be home by 8:00 p.m., before it got dark. His new job enabled him to spend a few hours each week at the Golden Hours winding the clocks, ensuring the hands kept moving forward, the brass pendulums kept swinging, and the bells kept ringing. He still found delight each time the various chimes sounded throughout the store, or whenever Jack called him over to teach him something new.

The generous six-dollar weekly salary he received made B?o feel both useful and proud that he was working to earn his keep. It also gave him the sense that he was preparing for life outside of the motherhouse. Recently, he’d overheard Anh speaking with Sister Mary Alice about coming up with a way for her to earn an income so she could start saving up to rent an apartment. “Not a big place,” she said slowly, “but two rooms. One for B?o. One for me.”

Theirs was a culture where the emotions of the heart were rarely expressed in words. His mother never said “I love you” to either him or his father. Instead, she displayed her love through a series of countless, silent gestures. His mother would show her affection through offering him a perfect mango she had peeled just for him, or by sacrificing her bowl of rice so he could eat it instead.

And whenever B?o looked down at the scar from where his father had bitten him, he would ask himself whether that too had that been a gesture of parental love. That act, as painful as it was , saved B?o’s life by ensuring he wasn’t also pulled down into the ocean that night.

He was fully aware that his aunt had been forced to become his caretaker due to tragic circumstances. She’d stoically cared for him from the moment he was orphaned at sea. His mind flashed to her cleansing his wound and wrapping it with strips from the bottom of her cotton shirt. He remembered her applying the betel leaves and later drizzling salt water on his wrist to prevent infection.

But more and more, her quiet, selfless gestures were starting to remind B?o of the love his late parents had always shown him. He thought, too, about how Anh had helped him to get his job at the Golden Hours. And now, as B?o overheard her speaking about preparing for a future for them—wanting to get a place of their own and seeking to find work to provide life’s essentials for him—his heart now felt her actions deeply. They felt like a mother’s love.

Every day, Anh spoke about her desire for independence and self-sufficiency. B?o overheard his aunt’s conversations with Dinh, how they would bolster each other’s confidence to keep studying and practicing their English. He listened also to the talks she had with Grace and how eager Anh was to see if it was possible for her to start working part time as a stockgirl at Kepler’s Market. She would stock the pyramids of fruit with the ripest ones on top, so that the customers were never disappointed. She would strive to bring joy to those who walked through the store, just as Dinh told her to harvest a bit of it each day for herself.

B?o, on the other hand, loved spending time inside the watch store. When Jack put on the radio as he worked and strange, wonderful music by bands called the Beatles or the Rolling Stones filled the air. Their unusual names made him smile, for when translated into Vietnamese, the words meant something to him.

It also comforted him to be near Hendrix, to watch as the dog curled up next to Jack and tucked his paws beneath his chin. Looking at Hendrix, he couldn’t help but think of Bibo back home and how the animal had been such a beloved companion to him.

But what he loved more than anything else was observing Jack hunched over the table in the workshop toiling on one of the watches that needed repair. It reminded him less about his father’s skill with radios; now it simply reminded him of his father’s joy.

One evening after B?o had been coming to the store for a second week in a row, Jack motioned for him to come into the workshop. As B?o entered the space, Jack pushed his magnifying visor up, the red and mottled left side of his face painfully visible, and announced, “I want to show you something I think you might find interesting.”

B?o inched closer.

Jack patted the work stool next to him and B?o bounced up on it and sat down.

“Look at this, little fella …” Jack lifted a round glass disc from his left hand. Straight down its center was a thin crack. “You see this? The crystal is broken, and it needs to be replaced.”

He passed the damaged pocket watch to B?o.

B?o took the crystal and began to carefully examine it, marveling how the broken glass still remained intact.

“Tom told me the owner came in and said he’d found the watch in his father’s junk drawer. Wanted to know if it was worth anything.”

B?o handed the watch back to Jack and listened.

“When Tom told the man that the casing wasn’t made of gold, the guy didn’t want to dish out any money to repair it,” he shook his head. “So here it is … now with us.” Jack traced the fracture with his finger. “I learned from the Goldens that there’s isn’t a timepiece that’s not worth saving.” He paused, contemplating his words. “Tom gave the man a few dollars for it and once it’s fixed, we’ll find it a new owner who’ll cherish it.”

“You can make it work.” B?o beamed optimistically.

“Yes,” Jack said. “That’s the beauty of it. Fixing broken things … it kind of feels like medicine for me.”

In the moonlit calm of the workshop, Jack pulled out a square paper envelope from one of the drawers and revealed a new, pristine crystal.

“We’re going to make this old watch so spiffy that no one ever mistakes it for junk again.”

The replacement glass rested in his palm.

“Now, let me show you how we do this.” He pulled a watch case press from the shelf. Then, step by step, he showed B?o how to slip the new crystal into the gasket.

“Next thing is getting it to keep time,” he laughed. “That’s the tricky part, B?o.”

He took out his set of tools, lining up the pliers and the small tweezers. “You have to imagine that the inside of a watch is like a human heart. When it’s broken, you need to mend it with a lot of care.”

The energy between the two of them shifts as they work side by side.

As Jack guides him, B?o feels the same warmth he once experienced with his dad back in Vietnam. A wave of fascination and excitement washes over him, for he is eager to learn something new. He is grateful to Jack for sharing his wisdom.

Jack does not say how B?o’s presence in the store has helped him. He does not say that when they listen to the songs on the radio together, the music brings him back to another time, to a part of his history where men like Doc or Stanley are still alive beside him. Or Becky is nestled against him in bed.

It gives him great satisfaction that B?o now considers the workshop a safe space to practice his English, that he asks if he can arrange the toolbox or wind the smaller timepieces in the display case, not just the larger ones displayed in the showroom. He is comforted by the boy’s affection for Hendrix, his ability to be quiet and still when he is deep in concentration.

But what is unexpected—and what he’s almost at a loss of words on how to express—is the realization that the child has made him feel like he has something of worth to offer.

“We fix it together,” B?o says. And Jack’s heart nearly explodes within his chest for it’s the same sweetness and innocence he saw at a distance when he cleaned desks at Foxton or when he sat beside Stanley with his Bible. It is so pure and bright, it lights up the room.

He realizes that the Golden Hours has become a sacred space for yet one more person. A refuge for the broken to heal.