Our Anniversary, Their Hundredth Date

I was out of bed before the sound stopped ringing.

The guest room door stood open. Lamplight spilled across the floor. Sienna stood barefoot in a field of broken glass with my father's pocket watch in her hand.

The cover had split down the middle. The second hand had frozen at 11:47.

That was the exact minute my father died.

"Maren." Her face had gone chalk white. "I was looking for a blanket. I opened the cabinet, and it just fell out. I swear."

My eyes moved past her to the display cabinet. Its glass door hung open. The little brass lock dangled from one hinge.

"That cabinet was locked," I said.

"I know, I just..."

"So how did you know where the key was?"

Her chin wobbled. Then it crumpled. "Cal told me. He said I might need something in the night, and he didn't want me waking you. He showed me where the spare was."

Of course he did.

I held out my hand. She set the watch in my palm. A sliver of the broken cover bit into my skin, but I barely felt it.

Three years ago, I had been standing at the airport gate with my boarding pass in my hand. My father had maybe a day left. Then Callum called, burning with a fever of a hundred and three, and his voice cracked when he said my name.

I turned around. I went to his hospital bed instead of my father's.

My father waited for me all night. He never saw me again.

Callum had held me after the funeral. *I'll take care of you for him,* he'd said into my hair. *You'll never face losing someone alone again.*

Now the last thing my father ever carried lay broken in a room Callum had opened with his own hands.

"Get out," I said.

"Maren, please." Sienna grabbed my wrist. "I didn't mean it."

I yanked my arm free.

She stumbled back one step, right onto a jagged piece of glass. She shrieked. Blood bloomed under her heel and smeared across the floorboards.

Footsteps pounded down the hall.

"Si?" Callum burst through the doorway. His gaze went straight to her foot. "Jesus. Don't move."

He swept her up into his arms in one motion. He didn't look at me once.

Sienna hooked her arms around his neck and sobbed into his collar. "It's my fault. Don't blame Maren."

He tilted her foot toward the light. He checked the cut with such careful fingers that my chest went tight.

Two years ago, I sliced my finger open while I was dicing onions. He had carried me to the car just like that. He drove through four red lights, and he held my hand in the ER until sunrise. He wouldn't loosen his grip even when the nurse asked him to.

"The watch is broken," I said.

Finally, he turned. His eyes dropped to my palm and the blood running down my wrist.

Something flickered across his face, soft and pained. "Maren. Does it hurt?"

I opened my mouth.

Sienna whimpered against his shoulder. "Cal, it's really deep..."

His attention snapped back to her. "The first aid kit's in our bedroom," he told me. "Clean yourself up first, okay?"

I didn't move.

"Do you remember what this watch means to me?" I asked.

He was quiet for a few seconds. "I'll find the best watchmaker in the city. If they can't fix it, I'll buy you one exactly like it."

"There's no other watch in the world my father engraved by hand."

His brow pulled down. "Do you expect me to leave her bleeding over a broken watch?"

A broken watch.

I searched his face for the man who'd promised me forever. I wanted to explain that it wasn't a watch. It was my father. It was the last piece of him that still ticked.

Instead, I nodded.

I just nodded, like he'd asked me to pass the salt.

"Cal, stay with her," Sienna murmured. "I can call a car to the hospital myself."

He was already carrying her to the door. "Maren is stronger than you think."

The door clicked shut behind them.

I sank onto the floor among the glass. I photographed the watch and sent it to Mr. Lindqvist, the old restorer who used to share coffee with my father on Sunday mornings.

He replied twenty minutes later.

*I'm so sorry, Maren. The original movement is beyond saving. I can replace the parts so it runs again. But it won't be the same watch.*

I held it against my chest until the sky turned gray. By morning, the cut on my palm had dried into a dark crust.

At ten, Callum's assistant knocked on the door.

"Morning, Ms. Rowe." Priya held out a velvet box. "From Mr. Sterling."

Inside lay an antique pocket watch, the same model as my father's, polished to a mirror shine. Tucked under it was a card in Callum's slanted handwriting.

*I hate seeing you sad. Dinner tonight?*

"It's worth about two hundred thousand," Priya said gently. "He canceled two board meetings to track it down. He also asked me to check whether you'd eaten breakfast."

My heart gave a stupid, traitorous little lurch.

"Tell him thank you," I said.

At three, my phone buzzed. It was Callum.

"How's your hand?" His voice was warm and low, as if last night had never happened. "Did you put antiseptic on it?"

"It's fine."

"I booked Lucette for tonight. Your favorite. I've got a surprise for you, too."

I almost said yes. The word was right there on my tongue.

"And Sienna wants to apologize," he added. "Just don't make her feel worse, okay? She cried the whole way home."

The word died in my mouth.

"I have the final review for the design competition tonight," I said. "I don't have time for dinner."

"Tonight? What time does it end?"

"Around eight."

"Then I'll pick you up myself." His voice dropped, coaxing and sweet. "Win or lose, I'm proud of you, sweetheart."

My eyes burned without warning.

For four years, every time he lowered his voice like that, I had forgiven him. Every single time.

"I'll see you later," I whispered, and hung up before I could say anything else.

My finished piece sat on the workbench, ready to be packed. It was a pendant shaped like an open watch face, with tiny sapphire hands set at the moment my life had stopped.

This was the one thing I still had for myself. I would fight for it one last time.

I wrapped it in silk and closed the case.

I didn't know that across town, Sienna was propped up on Callum's couch with her bandaged foot in his lap.

I didn't know she had already asked him, so sweetly, exactly when and where my review would be.