Chapter 5 - The Man Behind the Repair Counter
Bell & Birch Repairs stood between a hardware store and a bakery in a small Vermont town.
The front window displayed antique watches, broken music boxes, and silver bracelets waiting for repair.
I stood on the sidewalk for almost a minute before opening the door.
Ruth remained beside me.
"You don't have to do this today," she said.
"Yes, I do."
A brass bell rang overhead.
The shop smelled like cedarwood and machine oil.
An elderly customer stood at the counter while a man examined the clasp of her bracelet.
He wore glasses suspended low on his nose.
His silver hair was longer than in the photograph.
His shoulders had narrowed.
But when he turned his left hand, I saw the scar.
My knees almost gave way.
"Dad?"
The man froze.
The bracelet slipped from his fingers and struck the counter.
He looked at me.
For several seconds, he didn't move.
Then he whispered my name.
"Emma."
I had imagined this moment in a hundred different ways during the drive.
I might scream.
I might run into his arms.
I might demand an explanation.
Instead, I stood completely still.
"You're alive."
His mouth trembled.
"Yes."
"Seventeen years."
He lowered his head.
"I know."
I stepped closer.
"You let me bury you."
The elderly customer quietly collected her bracelet and left.
Ruth followed her outside, giving us privacy.
My father gripped the counter.
"I never wanted you to suffer."
I laughed through tears.
"Then you should've come home."
He flinched.
I recognized a familiar expression.
It was the look he'd worn when I'd caught him making a mistake in the workshop.
Only now I understood the difference between a man ashamed of his actions and a man willing to face their consequences.
"What happened that night?" I asked.
He removed his glasses.
"I borrowed money from people I shouldn't have. I thought I could pay it back before your mother noticed."
"With someone else's sapphires."
He nodded.
"When the lender started making threats, I tried to recover the stones. The boat was supposed to take me to a meeting across the river. A storm came in, and I damaged it near shore."
"And?"
"I got out."
My voice cracked.
"You got out."
He looked down.
"I walked until I reached a highway. Someone gave me a ride."
"You knew people would think you drowned."
"Not at first."
"But then?"
He didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
"You realized you could disappear."
His silence confirmed it.
I pressed a hand over my mouth.
All those birthdays.
All those school concerts.
The night I graduated.
The day I married Nathan.
He could have been there.
"I was ashamed," he whispered.
"Shame doesn't explain seventeen years."
"No."
"Did you ever think about coming back?"
"Every day."
"Thinking isn't the same as doing."
His eyes filled with tears.
I looked away.
On a shelf behind him sat a small wooden music box.
I recognized the carving on its lid.
A bird perched on a flowering branch.
He'd made one just like it for my twelfth birthday.
"Why did Mom pay you?"
He closed his eyes.
"Four years after I left, I wrote to her. I was sick, broke, and living in a shelter. She came to see me."
"What did she say?"
"She said she'd help me survive, but she wouldn't let me walk back into your life pretending nothing had happened."
"That should have been my decision."
"Yes."
His answer surprised me.
"Did she tell you to stay away forever?"
"No. She told me to become someone you could trust first."
I waited.
He swallowed.
"I never believed I'd earned that right."
I stared at him.
"That wasn't your choice to make either."
He wiped his face.
Then he reached beneath the counter.
"There's something else you need to know."
He placed a business card in front of me.
CELESTE ROWAN — CORPORATE ACQUISITIONS
May you like
"She came here three weeks ago," he said.
"With your husband."
