Since her death, he rarely wore it because a repair shop had quoted more than he could spare to replace a worn part. But he kept winding the crown and placing the watch back in its box, an old ritual that made it feel less like an object than a conversation he had not finished. He held it against his palm now, remembering Clara fastening the strap around his wrist and telling him not to lose it. Then he looked toward Marlo's room, where a child was dreaming of a green pencil and a warm house.
He did not decide immediately. He sat until the radiator clicked and the traffic outside grew quiet, weighing memory against the present in a way that made him feel disloyal no matter what he chose. At last he wrapped the watch in a clean cloth. He knew Clara had never loved him for the things he kept in a box, and he hoped that, wherever memories went when people were gone, she would understand why he was letting this one go.
On Christmas Eve, the city woke beneath a pale sky that promised more snow. Everett took the watch to a secondhand shop between deliveries, choosing a place far enough from home that he would be unlikely to meet anyone he knew. The owner, an older man with silver spectacles, examined the watch beneath a lamp and named a figure that was less than Everett had hoped. Everett almost took it back. Then he remembered Marlo standing before the shop window, admiring the colored pencils as if they were jewels.
"It was a gift," Everett said, surprised to hear himself speaking.
The owner looked up. "Then you ought to be certain."
"I am certain about what I need the money for. I'm not certain about anything else."
The man made no attempt to persuade him. He explained how the damaged mechanism affected the price and offered to hold the watch until the end of the afternoon, in case Everett changed his mind. Everett thanked him, walked outside, and stood beneath an awning while shoppers passed carrying bright bags. After ten minutes he went back inside and accepted the money.
He left the shop with bills folded in his pocket and the terrible sensation that he had just stepped out of a room he would never enter again. Yet the feeling altered when he reached the art store. He found the exact set Marlo wanted on a shelf near the back, checked its contents twice, and placed it carefully on the counter. The clerk asked whether it was for a child, and Everett nodded, unable to explain why something so small mattered so much.
He had enough afterward to buy groceries for Christmas dinner and make a partial payment toward the heating balance. He also bought a roll of red string at the discount counter, although he could have used tape. Clara had always tied gifts with ribbon, insisting that the wrapping was part of telling someone they were worth the trouble. He wanted Marlo to have at least one present that looked as though it had been prepared without counting every cent.