Here’s where I’m supposed to tell you I did the right thing. Marched into the courthouse, filed the real will, reported my brother, fixed it all. I haven’t. Not yet. It’s been eleven days.

I keep the watch on my nightstand now. I wound it the other night, just to hear it, and it still keeps perfect time.

Of course it does. Dad took care of his things. I sat there in the dark listening to it tick and I finally understood the joke he left me. He didn’t give me the cheap thing. He gave me the one thing in that whole house that never once stopped counting.