She described the last birthday Elias had spent with Toby, when the boy was still small enough to fall asleep against his father's shoulder. Elias had stood beside the window holding the lighter, though he no longer smoked, and had promised Sarah he would put it away if she hated seeing it. She told him it was a part of his past, not a punishment, and that he could keep it as long as he remembered which life he had chosen. He had tucked it into his shirt pocket, kissed her forehead, and gone outside to repair a neighbor's starter motor without charging for the work.
"That's the man I want Toby to know," Sarah said. "Not just the one people at your bar called a legend. The one who saw that Mrs. Alvarez couldn't get her car started and went out in the heat because she needed to pick up her children." She touched the silver with one finger. "The man who came back with dirt on his hands and said he'd be home in time for supper."
Silas closed his hand around the lighter, then returned it to her. "I'll help him know that man," he said. "And I'll tell him the rest carefully, when he asks, without making the worst things his father did sound like something he ought to admire." Sarah nodded, and for the first time since the day of Toby's visit to the Rusty Anchor, she believed that promise might be kept.
The clock repairer telephoned at the end of October. Mr. Adler had found a compatible part among a collection of old movements and believed he could restore the watch's timekeeping, although its face would still carry a crack and the hands would not look new. He invited Toby to come watch the final adjustment under supervision. Silas asked Sarah's permission before taking him, and Toby spent the entire morning talking about gears and springs while pretending he was not afraid to be disappointed.
Mr. Adler laid the watch on a felt pad and opened the back one final time. He explained the balance, the winding mechanism, and the patience required when the parts were smaller than the edge of a fingernail. Then he wound it carefully and held it near Toby's ear. A faint ticking filled the boy's head, so quiet he almost imagined it.
Toby stared at the watch. The hands moved away from twenty minutes past six for the first time he had ever seen. He grinned, and Silas felt his own eyes sting unexpectedly. A broken thing had not become new, but it had begun doing what it was made to do, carrying its scratches with it.
"How much?" Toby asked Mr. Adler. Silas had already settled the bill, but Mr. Adler answered the boy as if the question mattered.
"Less than it might have been if someone had tried to force it," he said. "Your uncle paid for the parts and the time. You can pay by looking after it and by remembering not to take apart a watch unless you know how to put it back together."