Part 3 — The Engraving
I turned the brass case over under the lights of Garths new shop window, and the whole sidewalk leaned in to see.
Inside the lid, in letters so small I needed my reading glasses, Linus had engraved a line of numbers and two names.
“Ada County Recorder. Instrument 2003-114872. Linus and Constance.”
Gladys, the white-haired woman in the front row, read it over my shoulder, and her voice carried. “That is a deed number, honey.”
Garth stopped smiling. He said the building was part of the business and the business was his to run.
The second slip of paper, folded even smaller, answered him in Linuss tiny hand.
“Garth, in 2003 I bought the building on Overland Road with my own savings, in my name and Connies. You rent from us. You always have.”
“Your twelve thousand dollars bought a third of the repair business. It never bought a single brick.”
A retired title clerk named Mr. Odom was standing at the curb. He asked quietly if anyone had a phone, because the recorder office posts deeds online, and he would be glad to read it out.
He read it out, and the deed said what the watch said: the building belonged to Linus and Constance, and now it belonged to me alone.
Garth did not shout. He set the giant scissors on the glass counter, and the red ribbon stayed uncut.
My sister Odette, who had held my elbow on the church steps, came through the crowd with her hand over her mouth. She said she was sorry, and I told her I knew.
That afternoon Garth and I sat with Mr. Odom and a lawyer from the bar association, who drew up the plain arithmetic. Garth owned one third of the repair business, valued fairly, and I would buy it from him over time. The van, the keys and the till money would come back to the shop account by Monday.
He asked, in a small voice, where the cardboard box was. He had never called the hauler. It was still in the back room, marked JUNK.
We carried it out together and set it on the kitchen counter lamp of the shop, and I counted. Fifty-two watches, each with a paper tag and a name.
Gladys came first, for the watch of her late husband Roy. I wound it, and it ticked as if it had never stopped. Then came the others, one by one, through the afternoon.
We took down the banner with Garths name alone and hung a hand-lettered one: TIME IS FREE. ONLY THE FIXING COSTS.
Number fifty-three sits in the window now, running slow and steady, and every evening I wind it once before I lock the door.