I later learned Brian never bought gas with the thirty-five dollars he received. Instead, he spent everything at a tavern called the Rusty Anchor, buying drinks for strangers until closing time. I searched every pawn shop and secondhand store in the county, showing people a photograph of Dad’s watch and describing its scratched glass and brown leather strap. Nobody had seen it. After several weeks, Mom stopped mentioning the theft, but she continued dusting around the empty space beside Dad’s reading glasses every evening. She never moved them.

Four months passed. Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went without Brian. Then, one freezing Saturday morning in January, two strangers appeared at Mom’s door. One was an older man named Gus, who owned a secondhand shop. The other was a younger lawyer named Daniel Hale. Gus held a small black velvet box against his chest. He explained that a young man had sold him a steel watch in September, claiming it belonged to his father. Something unusual about its back had caught his attention. It had been soldered shut deliberately. Curious, Gus had carefully opened it. Inside, he discovered something that changed everything. He had spent months trying to locate its rightful owner, and now he had finally found us.