She had not asked for one.
That was why I wanted to find it.
Four months earlier, I had started looking.
I checked estate dealers in Dallas and Fort Worth. I called a watch shop in Shreveport after a collector told me an older Hamilton had come through there. I learned more about mid-century watch movements than any HVAC contractor reasonably needs to know.
Eventually, an estate dealer outside Fort Worth found one close enough to the model Laura remembered.
I had the movement serviced.
I found a brown leather strap.
The dealer offered to polish the case.
I told him not to.
Her grandfather's watch would have carried scratches.
I wanted hers to look like something that had already lived.
For most of our marriage, I thought remembering things like that was part of loving someone.
Maybe it was.
Maybe the mistake was believing it was the whole job.
Dinner began normally.
Richard talked about a golf course development in Frisco as if he still owned it.
Melissa told a story about an airline losing one of her bags.
Carol complained that restaurants had become too noisy and then proceeded to talk over everybody else.
Laura glowed.
There is no other word for it.
She had always been beautiful when she was confident. She sat straighter. Her hands moved more when she talked. Her laugh became lower and less careful.
Even then, I was happy for her.
That is another part people misunderstand.
By the time a marriage ends, they like to imagine there must have been nothing good left in it.
There was.
There was plenty.
I loved seeing Laura succeed.
Laurel Row Interiors had become something real. Clients waited months to work with her. Designers wanted jobs there. Local magazines had photographed her showroom. Her work had moved from suburban renovations into expensive homes in Highland Park and Preston Hollow.
I was proud of her.
Pride does not disappear just because the person you are proud of eventually hurts you.
Sometimes that makes it worse.
Around nine, Richard tapped a fork against his wineglass.
Conversation faded.
He stood and gave the kind of toast Richard always gave: confident, sentimental in controlled portions, and long enough that everybody understood he enjoyed having the floor.
He talked about Laura's childhood.
Her ambition.
Her eye for beauty.
Her determination.
Then he called her “the pride of the family.”
Carol dabbed her eyes.
Melissa smiled.
I smiled too.
Laura stood when her father finished.
She raised her champagne glass.