Mom didn't want to stay near the front door.
She asked everyone to come into the kitchen.
I was relieved.
Standing there with the watch between us had made the whole thing feel unreal.
At least the kitchen was familiar.
Dad had eaten breakfast there for as long as I could remember.
He used to sit in the same chair every morning.
Coffee on his right.
Newspaper spread across the table.
Reading glasses pushed low on his nose.
After he died, Mom stopped sitting in that chair.
That afternoon, she sat there without thinking.
I noticed.
I didn't say anything.
Ed remained near the doorway.
He seemed uncomfortable.
I couldn't blame him.
He had bought an ordinary-looking watch from my brother and ended up in the middle of a family secret.
Mr. Cole placed his briefcase on the table.
He didn't open it immediately.
First, he explained that Dad had contacted the law firm several months before his death.
There had been specific instructions.
The firm was supposed to investigate old documents connected to his employment.
Certain information could be released only after the watch was recovered.
Mom stared at him.
"Why would Harold make everything depend on a watch?"
Mr. Cole considered the question.
"He seems to have believed it was the one object that would remain close to you."
I looked down.
That answer hurt.
Dad had known how much Mom loved his watch.
He had been right about her.
He had been wrong about Scott.
Or maybe he had simply believed that even Scott wouldn't go that far.
I didn't know.
Mr. Cole finally opened the briefcase.
He took out three folders.
One held old employment records.
Another contained correspondence.
The third included an envelope with Mom's name written across it.
She touched it carefully.
"That's Harold's handwriting."
Mr. Cole nodded.
He explained that the envelope was meant to be handed directly to her after the watch came back.
I watched her hold it.
She didn't open it immediately.
She looked as though she needed to hear everything else first.
Mr. Cole began with the employment records.
Dad had joined North River Steel Works in 1974.
I knew that year.
I had heard Mom mention it many times.
Dad had been young and glad to have steady work.
The money wasn't generous, but it covered the necessities.
Our first house was small.
The winters were difficult.
Dad accepted overtime whenever the mill offered it.
He worked there for more than thirty years.
There were two promotions along the way.
Neither one made him rich.
He still drove used cars.
He still repaired things rather than replacing them.
If a pair of work boots had another year left in them, Dad would make sure they lasted that year.
That was just how he lived.
I couldn't remember him buying something extravagant for himself.
His watch was probably the clearest example.
Fifty-one years.
The same watch.
I looked at Mr. Cole.
"What did he find at the mill?"
The lawyer turned through several pages.
He started to mention a company name.
Brennan Steel.
I stopped him.
"Did you say Brennan Steel?"
He looked up.
"Yes. I believe that's what appears in one of these records."
I frowned.
"Dad worked at North River."
Mr. Cole checked the page.
He explained that he had seen Brennan Steel mentioned in the material and assumed it was connected to a department or project.
He had not yet confirmed what the name represented.
That bothered me.
Dad's surname was Brennan.
Now it was appearing in a business record connected to the mill.
I wanted a simple explanation.
None came.
Mr. Cole continued.
He said the documents pointed toward financial irregularities in September 1981.
There had been questions involving equipment.
Inventory.
Purchase orders.
Payments that did not appear to match the records they were supposed to support.
I listened carefully.
Dad had worked around heavy machinery all his life.
I could understand missing tools or damaged equipment.
But money transfers?
That was another matter.
Then the lawyer told us the amount involved.
About one hundred and eighty-six thousand dollars.
In 1981.
For a moment, I thought I had misunderstood.
"Did you say one hundred and eighty-six thousand?"
"Approximately."
Mom sat very still.
I tried to imagine that much money passing through the place where Dad spent his days.
It seemed impossible.
We had grown up watching expenses.
Mom compared prices at the grocery store.
Dad saved screws and nails.
We drove to campsites instead of taking expensive vacations.
And all that time, there had been a financial mystery involving a sum that could have changed our lives.
I hated myself a little for thinking that.
The first place my mind went was money.
Dad would have been disappointed.
He had always warned us against measuring people by what they owned.
Still, I wondered.
Had he known where the money went?
Had someone offered him part of it?
Had he refused?
Mr. Cole said the available documents were incomplete.
Dad's name appeared in an internal report.
But there was no proof he had taken any money.
The records suggested he may have been the one questioning the transactions.
Mom sat up straighter.
"Harold wasn't a thief."
Her voice was quiet.
But there was no uncertainty in it.
Mr. Cole assured her he wasn't accusing Dad.
Mom shook her head.
"He worked himself to exhaustion. He wouldn't have taken something that wasn't his."
I remembered the old tools Dad brought home.
Sometimes they were bent or broken.
He would spend an evening repairing them because he couldn't stand throwing useful things away.
That was the man we knew.
Mr. Cole placed another page on the table.
It was a copy of a handwritten letter.
The handwriting wasn't Dad's.
It was cramped and difficult to follow.
At the bottom was a name.
Daniel Whitaker.
Mom drew in a breath.
I turned toward her.
"Do you know him?"
She nodded slowly.
"He worked with your father."
I waited.
She said Daniel had visited our house when Scott and I were young.
He and Dad had been friends for a time.
Then one day, Daniel stopped coming.
When Mom asked about him, Dad said he had left the mill.
He offered no explanation.
I could almost hear Dad saying it.
He had never liked bringing workplace problems home.
Mom used to ask about his day.
He would tell her the shift had been long and ask what was for dinner.
That was usually the end of it.
Mr. Cole pointed toward the letter.
It was dated September 17, 1981.
The same date written on the watch note.
He explained that Daniel had referred to an original ledger in Dad's possession.
Daniel was worried that management would retaliate if the records were discovered.
Not just against one of them.
Against both.
I looked at the note again.
The mill.
Locker 214.
Daniel.
The pieces were beginning to connect.
Dad had been protecting financial records.
Daniel had known about them.
Someone at the company may have wanted those records kept hidden.
I wanted to ask a hundred questions.
But Mr. Cole kept reminding us that an old letter was not enough to establish exactly what happened.
The company had changed hands twice.
Some records were gone.
Others remained in an archive controlled by a later owner of the property.
The original locker rooms, however, might still exist.
I leaned forward.
"Then we should go there."
Mom looked at me.
"Jenny, we don't even know what we're looking for."
"We have the locker number."
"That doesn't mean it's still there."
She was right.
But I couldn't sit at that table and do nothing.
Dad had left directions.
Someone had preserved a note inside his watch.
The least we could do was follow it.
Mr. Cole said he would need permission to enter the property.
He didn't want anyone walking into an old industrial building without authorization.
I understood.
I was impatient, not foolish.
He promised to contact the company responsible for the site and determine whether access was possible.
Mom looked down at Dad's letter.
Then she touched the envelope with her name on it.
For the first time since the lawyer arrived, I noticed how tired she looked.
She had buried her husband only three months before.
Now we were asking her to reconsider forty-five years of marriage.
I reached across the table.
"We don't have to understand everything at once."
Mom nodded.
But I could tell she didn't feel comforted.
Neither did I.
Mr. Cole spent more time explaining the limits of what he knew.
He had photocopies.
Fragments of old correspondence.
References to financial records.
But he had not located the original ledger.
Without it, there was little he could confirm.
That was when I understood why Dad had hidden the directions.
He had wanted someone to look for the original evidence.
Not a story.
Not a rumor.
Something that could be examined.
It was exactly the kind of distinction Dad would have cared about.
He didn't like arguments that depended on who shouted the loudest.
Whenever Scott and I fought, Dad made us explain what had actually happened.
One person at a time.
No interruptions.
Sometimes I hated that rule.
That afternoon, I found myself wishing he were there to enforce it.
Eventually, Mr. Cole closed the folders.
He said he would call after making inquiries.
Ed moved toward the doorway.
Before leaving, he spoke to Mom.
He explained that he hadn't understood the watch's significance when Scott sold it.
It had looked like an ordinary old piece.
But after discovering the message, he couldn't bring himself to put it back up for sale.
He had cleaned the watch and returned it because he believed it belonged with the family.
Mom stood.
She thanked him.
It was a simple exchange.
No dramatic speech.
Just a grieving woman and a stranger who had chosen to do the decent thing.
Ed mentioned that he had already arranged the forty-dollar refund through the account he used for purchases.
Whatever Scott had done with the money was between Scott and us.
I almost laughed.
Forty dollars had started all of this.
Now it seemed like the most ridiculous amount I had ever heard.
I walked Ed to the porch.
He said he had thought about his own father when he found the note.
There were things his father had never explained before dying.
Ed knew what it felt like to be left with unanswered questions.
That was why he couldn't ignore the paper.
I shook his hand.
"You brought something important back to Mom."
He glanced toward the kitchen.
"I hope it helps her."
Then he left.
I stood outside for another moment.
The air was cold.
I could see the kitchen light through the window.
Mom was sitting at the table again.
The watch rested beside Dad's reading glasses.
Seeing those two things together made my throat tighten.
I went back inside.
Mom didn't speak for a while.
Then she asked me a question.
"Do you think your father was frightened all those years?"
I looked at her.
"I don't know."
She told me Dad used to wake during the night.
Sometimes he said he'd dreamed about work.
Sometimes he refused to explain.
She had assumed it was exhaustion.
The mill was loud.
The hours were long.
His shoulders and back often hurt.
There had always been enough ordinary reasons for him to sleep badly.
But now she remembered something else.
Years earlier, she had asked Dad whether he regretted spending so much of his life at North River.
He had told her that choosing what was right could leave a person paying for it long afterward.
Mom had thought he meant the sacrifices he made for his family.
Missed celebrations.
Extra shifts.
Hours he could never get back.
Now she wasn't sure.
I sat with her.
We didn't try to solve anything else that afternoon.
We talked about Dad instead.
His terrible whistling.
The breakfast he made on Sundays.
The way he once drove three hours to rescue me after my car broke down during college.
We talked about the money Scott had borrowed and never returned.
Dad had rarely complained about it.
He just helped.
Maybe too much.
Then Mom reminded me of something he always said.
Money should never be allowed to choose your character for you.
I had heard him say versions of that all my life.
As a child, I thought it meant we shouldn't waste things.
As an adult, I thought it meant we should be careful with our finances.
That evening, I began to wonder whether Dad had learned the lesson somewhere much darker.
And whether his old watch was the only reason we would ever find out.
Source: psndaily.xyz
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: When I Told Scott About the Name Hidden in Dad’s Watch, His Sudden Silence Made Me Question What He Already Knew
My Brother Thought Dad’s Old Watch Was Worth Almost Nothing, Until a Stranger Brought It Back With Something Hidden Inside
Part 2 of 15
