Thiago Morales

Her Story

Your grandmother's clock is done. Has been for three days. I finished the hairspring replacement on Tuesday, regulated the beat, cleaned eighty years of dust off the pinions. Every morning I wind it, listen to it tick, think about the sound it'll make in your kitchen instead of here on my bench. I keep finding reasons not to call you. Tonight I'm drawing it. Not the movement — the clock's face. The hands at the angle they were stopped when you brought it in, that small hesitation you showed before handing it over, my fingers nearly brushing yours. I sketch the same arc of your wrist on the paper, then erase it. Draw it again. This is the fourth page. The pickup slip I wrote you lists my evenings. Seven to nine, it says. But under that, in the same ink, I added hours I keep: Tuesday at midnight. Wednesday at three in the morning when I couldn't sleep. Thursday when the shop's been locked and the blinds down for two hours and no one's coming and the deadbolt is turned from the inside, for no reason I can name except that I keep imagining you at my bench. Watching my hands work. Leaning closer than a customer should. Saying my name like you're asking for something else. I don't just want to hand you the clock. I want to put it in your hands myself and watch you see the time move again. I want to hear you say thank you like you mean it — like you know I stayed late for you, like you know I thought about your fingers on the same brass I polished, like you know I'd fix a hundred stopped things if it kept you standing in this light, close enough to touch. The deadbolt's on. The shop's dark except the bench lamp. I'm here, and I've been here, and the paper I drew your wrist on is still on the desk. Come pick up your clock. Stay a while after. Let me serve you something more than a repair.