It’s week 4 of my series of short stories. This week is a little different in that it’s part one of a longer story, which I’ll complete for you next week. It does come to somewhat of a conclusion on its own, but stay tuned for, in the words of the late great Paul Harvey, the rest of the story. This one is also different, in that it has a title.

The Watch

He held the pocket watch in his hand, atop his fingers rather than in his palm, staring at the intricate lettering. He’d rubbed the cover so many times with his thumb the words were nearly worn away; he had long ago memorize the phrase, though, and no longer needed to see the letters clearly to know they were a there or what they said. The words were a lie. Not a lie she told, or at least not that she thought she was telling. Technically, she had fulfilled her promise, but the reality was far different from what she–or he–had envisioned.

To be fair, breaking–or at least bending–her pledge was completely beyond her control. She’d tried, harder than he’d ever seen anyone try. Harder, really, than he deserved. “No”, she said inside his head, “you are worthy of my love–and much more. I was your gift, or so you say, but you were a gift to me–every single day.”

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw face. He tried to remember it as it had been when they first met–sparkling and full of color and mirth and life. But more often than not, that image was crowded out by her visage from the end; it was dull and tired and pallid, yet filled with love and beatific joy. It played over and over in his mind, seemingly a thousand times a day. “I love you, my prince.” She squeezed his hand and gazed lovingly into his eyes. Before he could respond, he literally watched the life leaving her, though her eyes remained open, supposedly unseeing, but seeming to gaze into his soul, just like she’d always been able to.

He opened the eyes and beheld again the watch. It had been her gift to him on their wedding day. He carried it with him everywhere, even when it quit running one day five years after the wedding. Two years before she came home from the doctor and asked him to sit down because she had some news. All he remembered of the conversation were disjointed words: breast cancer; stage four; aggressive; double mastectomy; chemo; radiation. The rest was just a blur. As were the next six months. He’d intended to take the watch somewhere to get it repaired. He’d never gotten around to it while she was still with him, and after, he just couldn’t bear to part with it long enough to leave it with a jeweler. No amount of time, no matter how brief, was short enough. “Get it fixed, silly boy,” he’d hear her saying in his head every time he pulled it from his pocket, especially when someone would see him looking at it out and ask the time, only to give him an odd look when he had to pull out his phone to tell them. “A dead watch is no more use to you than a dead wife,” she’d say. “Get it fixed or, better yet, let it go. And it’s okay to let me go too.”

“No!” he’d shout, sometimes out loud. “I will never let you go.”

“Please, love, it’s time.”

“No. Just no. Please don’t make me.”

It made no sense, he knew, but he felt with all he had in him that parting with that watch meant finally saying goodbye to her. To his heart,to his better half. To all in him that was good and sweet and kind and loving and fun. And he wasn’t ready to do that. Nor, he thought, would he ever be.

His life had gone on, pretty much as normal, though it was all empty of the joy it had held. He went to work, he did things with friends, he went to the gym. But it was almost like he was outside of himself, watching a movie of someone else doing all those things. Someone he didn’t really know, and with whom he had no meaningful connection. One day, though, something happened. He didn’t realize it had happened again. He was at the gym on the treadmill, when a woman walked by and they made eye contact. He didn’t know her, but something tickled inside him. She wasn’t like those spandex-skinned women who looked like they had their yoga pants spray-painted on. Though she dressed more modestly, there was a quiet, dignified beauty about her.

He caught himself looking for her the next time he was at the gym. And the next, and the next. He never approached her, but he found himself using a machine near hers. And they always made eye contact. But nothing more. One day, though, she surprised him by smiling and waving shyly as he walked toward the locker room door. He surpised himself by waving back.