My Brother Claimed He Was Dad’s Favorite Son and Took His Gold Watch, but Three Days Later, Everything Changed

Keeping Time

At 9:02 on Thursday morning, my cell phone rang.

I was standing in my father’s kitchen in Galesburg, Illinois, washing his coffee mug.

The brown one with the chip on the handle. The one that said BURLINGTON NORTHERN — GALESBURG YARD — SAFETY FIRST. He drank out of it every morning for thirty-one years.

I’d been washing it for five minutes. It was already clean.

I just couldn’t stop.

The phone buzzed on the counter next to the sink.

RICK.

I dried my hands on the dish towel.

I picked it up.

“Hello?”

He was yelling so loudly I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

“WHAT DID DAD DO?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Laurie! Are you there? Tell me what Dad did! TELL ME WHAT DAD DID!”

In the background, I could hear another voice.

A man. Older. Calm. Steady. Professional. The voice of someone who’d said difficult things to customers before and knew how to say them gently.

“Sir,” the man was saying. “Sir, I understand this is upsetting. But I need you to understand what I’m telling you about the appraisal—”

“I don’t care about the appraisal!” Rick shouted. Not at me. At the man. Then back into the phone. “Laurie! Did you know about this? Did you KNOW?”

I sat down at the kitchen table.

In Dad’s chair.

The one by the window. Where he sat every morning before his coffee. Where he wound his gold watch.

I looked at the little velvet box sitting on the table in front of me.

I’d been looking at it for three days.

“Yes, Rick,” I said quietly. “I knew.”

But I need to go back.

To the funeral.

To my brother’s hand reaching into our father’s coffin.

My name is Laurie Dombek Hadley. I’m fifty-four years old.

I teach fourth grade at Silas Willard Elementary School in Galesburg, Illinois. I’ve taught there for twenty-six years. I’m married to Tom, who’s a lineman for Ameren.

We have two kids, both grown. Emma’s a nurse in Peoria. Josh is in the Army, stationed at Fort Campbell.

I grew up in Galesburg. In a little white house on East Fremont Street. Two blocks from the railroad tracks.

I’ve lived here my whole life.

My father was Eugene Dombek.

Everybody called him Gene.

He worked for the Burlington Northern Railroad for twenty-five years. At the Galesburg classification yard. The biggest hump yard on the BNSF system. Trains come in from Chicago and Kansas City and Denver and get broken apart and put back together and sent back out.

Dad was a car inspector. Then a yardmaster. He walked the yard in the dark and the cold and the heat. Checking couplers. Checking brakes. Checking wheels.

He knew every sound a train could make.

He could hear a cracked wheel from a hundred yards away.

When he retired in 1985, the railroad gave him a gold watch.

A real one. Fourteen-karat gold. A Hamilton. With a white face and black Roman numerals and a little second hand that swept around in a perfect circle.

On the back, they engraved it.

EUGENE J. DOMBEK — 25 YEARS FAITHFUL SERVICE — BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD — 1960–1985.

Dad wore that watch for forty years.

Every single day.

To church. To the hardware store. To the Hy-Vee. To my wedding. To my kids’ birthday parties. To Mom’s funeral in 2009.

He never took it off. Not even to sleep.

And every morning, before he drank his coffee, he sat at the kitchen table and wound it.

Same chair. Same time. Six-fifteen.

He’d take it off his wrist. He’d hold it in his left hand. He’d turn the crown with his right thumb and finger. Slowly. Carefully. Exactly twenty-two turns.

I counted once when I was ten.

Then he’d hold it up to his ear. Listen to it tick.

Then he’d put it back on.

Then he’d drink his coffee.

“A man ought to keep track of time,” he’d always say.

He said it to me when I was six and I was late for the school bus.

He said it to Rick when Rick was sixteen and came home at two in the morning.

He said it at Mom’s funeral. Standing at her grave at Hope Cemetery. In the rain. Looking down at the casket.

“A man ought to keep track of time, Laurie,” he said quietly. “Because it runs out.”

His final wish was to be buried wearing it.

He made that clear to both his children.

Several times.

The first time was in 2018. After his first heart attack. He was in the ICU at Cottage Hospital. Tubes everywhere. He grabbed my hand.

“Laurie,” he said. “When I go. The watch. On my wrist. In the box.”

“Dad, you’re not going anywhere.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

The second time was at Thanksgiving in 2020. Rick was home for once. We were all at the table on East Fremont. Dad tapped his watch with one finger.

“This goes with me,” he said. “Both of you hear me? When I’m gone, it stays on my wrist.”

Rick nodded. “Sure, Dad.”

The third time was in his living room. Last March. Three months before he died. He was in his recliner. Oxygen tube in his nose. Too weak to get up.

“Laurie,” he said. “The watch.”

“I know, Dad.”

“With me,” he said. “In the ground.”

“I know.”

“Tell Rick,” he said. “Make sure he knows.”

“He knows, Dad.”

Dad looked at me for a long time.

“Tell him anyway,” he said.

My brother, Rick, lives in Phoenix.

He moved there in 1994. When he was twenty-four. He sold insurance. Then real estate. Then he started his own company. Something with commercial property development. Strip malls. Office parks.

He did well. For a while.

He has a house in Scottsdale. A pool. A boat on Lake Pleasant. He drives a Range Rover. His second wife is named Brittany. She’s thirty-four. They have a son, Mason, who’s seven. Rick also has two grown kids from his first marriage who don’t talk to him.

Rick was Dad’s favorite when we were growing up.

I knew it. Everybody knew it.

He was the son. The football star. Starting quarterback at Galesburg High. All-conference his senior year.

He threw for three hundred yards against Moline. The Register-Mail put him on the front page of the sports section.

Dad kept that page. Framed it. It hung in the hallway for forty years.

I was the daughter. The quiet one. The one who got good grades and stayed out of trouble and went to Western Illinois University forty miles away and came back to teach fourth grade in the same town where

I was born.

Nobody framed anything about me.

But after Rick moved to Phoenix, he didn’t come back.

Not much.

He usually remembered to call Dad at Christmas.

And on his birthday. September fourteenth.

That was about it.

Five-minute calls. Ten if Dad could keep him on the line.

How you doing, Dad? Good. Good. Weather okay? Great. Listen, I gotta run. Love you. Merry Christmas.

He came home for Mom’s funeral in 2009. He stayed two days.

He came home for Dad’s eightieth birthday in 2015. He stayed one night. At the Hampton Inn on East Main. Not at the house.

He didn’t come home for Dad’s first heart attack. Or his second. Or when Dad’s kidneys failed in 2021.

I lived fifteen minutes away.

When Dad’s kidneys failed, he needed dialysis.

Three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. At the DaVita dialysis center on North Henderson Street.

Four hours each time.

He couldn’t drive himself. His eyes were going. His hands shook.

So I drove him.

For four years.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I’d leave school at 2:45. I’d drive to East Fremont Street. I’d help Dad into his coat. I’d help him down the porch steps. I’d help him into my car.

I’d drive him to DaVita. I’d sit with him while the machines cleaned his blood. Four hours. In a vinyl chair.

Grading spelling tests. Reading to him. Watching Wheel of Fortune on the little TV mounted on the wall.

I’d drive him home at seven. I’d help him up the steps. I’d make him dinner. Low sodium. Low potassium. No bananas. No tomatoes. No orange juice.

I’d make sure he took his pills.

I’d drive home at nine.

I learned things.

Things nobody teaches you.

How to trim your father’s toenails when he can’t bend over anymore. How to check his feet for sores because his diabetes means he can’t feel them. How to clean the fistula in his arm where they put the dialysis needles.

How to operate his oxygen concentrator. How to change the filters. How to switch his tank when the power went out during an ice storm in 2023.

How to help a proud man who walked a railroad yard in the dark for twenty-five years get dressed when

his hands shake too much to button his own shirt.

He hated it.

He hated needing me.

“You’ve got your own life, Laurie,” he’d say. “Your kids. Your students. Tom. You shouldn’t have to do this.”

“I want to, Dad.”

“Your brother should be helping.”

“Rick’s busy.”

Dad would look out the car window.

“Rick’s always busy,” he’d say.

Rick arrived by plane the evening before the funeral.

Dad died on a Saturday in June.

At home. In his recliner. Early in the morning.

He’d made it through dialysis on Friday. I’d driven him home. Made him dinner. A chicken breast and

rice. He ate half of it.

“Thank you, Laurie,” he said at the door. “For everything.”

He’d never said that before. For everything.

I didn’t think anything of it.

The next morning, I called at seven like I always did. He didn’t answer.

I drove over.

He was in his recliner. By the window. With the oxygen tube still in his nose.

The gold watch was on his wrist.

Still ticking.

He’d wound it that morning.

Before he died.

Rick flew into Moline on Wednesday night. The Quad Cities airport. Forty-five minutes north.

He picked up a rented Lexus at the airport. Black. An ES 350.

He checked into the Hampton Inn on East Main.

He didn’t come to the house.

The visitation was Thursday. At Hinchliff-Pearson-West Funeral Home on North Prairie Street.

Two to four in the afternoon. Then six to eight.

Dad was in an open casket. In his good gray suit. The one he wore to Mom’s funeral. A white shirt. A navy blue tie with little gold trains on it. Emma bought it for him for Father’s Day.

His hands were folded on his chest.

The gold watch was on his left wrist.

Exactly where he wanted it.

People came all afternoon.

Men from the railroad yard. Old men now. In their seventies and eighties. Men Dad worked with for twenty-five years. They stood by the casket in their good jackets and told stories.

Your dad could hear a cracked wheel from the other end of the yard.

Your dad never missed a shift. Not once. Not in the blizzard of ‘78. He walked to work.

Your dad taught me how to read a car card when I was nineteen and didn’t know nothing.

Neighbors from East Fremont Street. People from St. Patrick’s Church. The nurses from DaVita. All six of

them came. They hugged me. They cried.

“He talked about you every time,” one of them said. Her name was Denise. “Every single session. My Laurie brought me. My Laurie’s a teacher. My Laurie trimmed my toenails.”

Rick got there at three-fifteen.

In a charcoal suit. Expensive. A blue silk tie. Sunglasses he didn’t take off until he was inside.

He hugged me. Quick. Stiff.

“Hey, sis.”

“Hi, Rick.”

He looked around the room. At the flowers. At the people. At the casket.

“Nice turnout,” he said.

He lingered beside Dad’s open casket.

For a long time.

Ten minutes. Maybe more. Standing there with his hands in his pockets. Looking down at Dad.

At first, I believed he was having a private moment with our father.

I stayed back. I let him.

I thought, Maybe this is it. Maybe he’s finally saying something. Goodbye. I’m sorry. Something.

I thought, He’s been gone thirty years. He has a lot to say.

Then his hand reached forward.

Into the casket.

He took Dad’s left hand. Lifted it off his chest.

He opened the watch clasp.

Removed the gold watch from Dad’s wrist.

And tucked it into his jacket pocket.

He did it with everyone watching.

The room went quiet.

Not all at once. In waves. Like when you drop a rock in a pond. The people closest to the casket saw first.

They stopped talking. Then the people behind them. Then the people behind them.

Within ten seconds, the whole room was silent.

I walked over.

My legs felt strange. Like they belonged to somebody else.

I stopped next to my brother.

“Rick,” I said. Quietly. “Dad specifically wanted that watch buried with him.”

My brother didn’t bother speaking quietly.

He turned around. He looked at me. He looked at the room.

“Dad would want it with the son who was important,” he said.

Loud. Clear. Every person in the room heard it.

The son who was important.

I couldn’t believe those words.

I stood there. Next to my father’s casket. Next to my brother.

The son who was important.

Four years. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Four hours each time. Toenails. Oxygen tanks. Low-sodium

chicken. Wheel of Fortune.

And my brother, who called twice a year, stood at our father’s casket and announced to a room full of railroad men and church ladies and dialysis nurses that he was the one who mattered.

Aunt Joyce let out a shocked gasp.

She’s Dad’s younger sister. Seventy-nine. She was sitting in the front row in a folding chair with her cane.

She put her hand over her mouth.

“Richard Eugene,” she said.

Rick didn’t look at her.

The funeral director started toward us.

Mr. Pearson. Sixty-something. Gray hair. Kind face. He’d done Mom’s funeral. And my grandmother’s.

He took two steps toward the casket.

Then he hesitated.

He looked at me.

I could see him thinking. Do I step in? Is this my business? This is family.

He stopped.

I glanced down at Dad’s wrist.

His left hand was lying back on his chest. Where Rick had put it.

A little crooked. Not folded the way Mr. Pearson had arranged it.

And on his wrist, where the watch had been, there was a thin band of skin.

Lighter than the rest of his arm. Pale. Almost white.

The place where the watch had rested for forty years.

The place the sun never touched.

I couldn’t stop looking at it.

That pale band of skin.

Forty years of six-fifteen in the morning. Forty years of twenty-two turns of the crown. Forty years of holding it up to his ear.

Gone.

In ten seconds.

My husband gently touched my back.

Tom. He’d been standing behind me. I hadn’t noticed.

He leaned close to my ear.

“Are you going to say anything?” he whispered.

I certainly could have.

I could have confronted Rick in front of everyone.

I could have said, You son of a bitch. You weren’t here. You didn’t drive him to dialysis. You didn’t trim his toenails. You didn’t sit with him when the power went out and switch his oxygen tank by flashlight.

I could have said, Dad asked for that watch to stay on his wrist. Three times. He asked me to tell you. I told you. You nodded.

I could have said, You’re not the son who was important. You’re the son who left.

I could have reached into his jacket pocket and taken it back.

I’m fifty-four. I teach fourth grade. I’ve broken up a hundred fights on the playground. I know how to get something out of a pocket.

But I looked at Dad.

At his face. Peaceful. In his good gray suit and his tie with the little gold trains.

And I thought about what he’d want.

Not the watch.

Him.

My father hated scenes. He hated yelling. He hated people making a fuss. When Mom used to get angry,

he’d go out to the garage and work on his model trains until she calmed down.

Don’t make a show, Laurie, he’d say. It’s never worth it.

I refused to turn Dad’s farewell into an argument.

Not here. Not in front of the railroad men. Not in front of Aunt Joyce. Not in front of the dialysis nurses who drove in from Peoria and Monmouth and Knoxville to say goodbye.

Not with Dad lying right there.

“Alright, Rick,” I said.

That was all.

Two words.

Alright, Rick.

He looked at me.

For a second, something crossed his face. Surprise. Maybe disappointment. Like he’d been waiting for me to fight. Like he wanted me to.

Then he tapped his suit pocket.

Twice. Pat, pat.

And walked off.

He went out the front door of the funeral home.

I heard the Lexus start in the parking lot.

He didn’t come back for the evening visitation.

The room stayed quiet for a long time.

Then old Stan Novak came over. Eighty-six. He worked the hump yard with Dad from 1962 to 1985. He walks with two canes now.

He stood next to me by the casket.

He looked down at Dad’s wrist. At the pale band of skin.

“Twenty-five years I worked next to your father,” Stan said quietly. “Never saw him without that watch.

Not once.”

He looked at me.

“You did right, Laurie,” he said. “Not fighting. Your dad would’ve hated a fight.”

“I know.”

Stan put his hand on my shoulder.

“But your dad,” he said, “was a lot smarter than people thought.”

I looked at him.

“What do you mean?”

Stan almost smiled.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just that he always knew which cars were gonna come off the track. Before they did.”

Mr. Pearson came over after everybody left.

He looked at Dad’s wrist.

“Laurie,” he said quietly. “I’m so sorry. I should have stepped in. I didn’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Pearson.”

“Would you like me to—” He stopped. “I could put something there. A different watch. So it’s not—so his wrist isn’t—”

I looked at the pale band of skin.

“No,” I said. “Leave it.”

The funeral was Friday morning. St. Patrick’s. Father Ruiz said the Mass.

Rick sat in the front pew. Next to me. In his charcoal suit.

The watch wasn’t on his wrist.

It was still in his pocket. I could see the bulge.

He didn’t say anything to me during the Mass. Or at the cemetery. Or at the luncheon after in the church basement. Ham sandwiches and potato salad and lemon bars.

He left the luncheon after twenty minutes.

He flew back to Phoenix that afternoon.

Later that evening, I unlocked Dad’s house.

East Fremont Street. The little white house two blocks from the tracks.

It was the first time I’d been inside since I found him in his recliner.

I stood in the doorway. In the dark.

The house smelled like him. Old Spice. Coffee. The pine-scented cleaner I used on his kitchen floor every Friday.

I turned on the kitchen light.

I sat in his usual chair beside the kitchen table.

The one by the window. Where he sat every morning at six-fifteen. Where he wound his watch.

The brown BNSF mug was still in the dish drainer. Where I’d put it Friday night after his dinner.

I picked it up.

I held it.

I cried for a long time.

Then I remembered.

Three months before he died.

In March. When he was so weak he could barely get out of his recliner.

He asked me to get something from his bedroom closet.

“Top shelf,” he said. “In the back. Behind my hats. A little gray box. Metal. With a handle.”

I went to his bedroom. I opened the closet. I moved his hats. His good fedora. His BNSF caps. His Cubs hat from 2016.

Behind them, on the top shelf, was a small fireproof container. Gray. Metal. With a handle and a little keyhole.

I brought it to him.

He held it in his lap.

He didn’t open it.

“Laurie,” he said. “There’s something in here you’ll need. After I’m gone.”

“What is it?”

He shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said. “After.”

He handed me a small key. On a piece of red string.

“Put this somewhere safe,” he said. “Don’t open the box until I’m gone. Promise me.”

“Dad—”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

He looked at the box.

“It’s meant for you,” he said. “Not Rick.”

“What have you put in there, Dad?”

He looked out the window. At the street. At the railroad tracks two blocks away.

He almost smiled.

“You’ll understand when the time comes,” he said.

I put the box back on the shelf. Behind his hats.

I put the key on my own key ring. Next to my house key and my classroom key.

I forgot about it.

Until that night.

I went into his bedroom.

I opened the closet.

I moved his hats.

The gray fireproof box was still there. On the top shelf. In the back.

I brought it to the kitchen table.

I took the little key off my key ring.

I opened it.

Inside lay two things.

A little velvet case. Dark blue. The size of a deck of cards. Old. The velvet worn shiny at the corners.

And a sealed envelope.

White. Letter-sized. With my name on the front in Dad’s shaky handwriting.

LAURIE.

I opened the envelope first.

Inside were three sheets of paper. Lined. Torn from a spiral notebook. Folded in thirds.

Dad’s handwriting. Shaky. Some words hard to read.

I unfolded the letter.

I read it once.

Laurie,

If you’re reading this, I’m gone. And I’m guessing your brother took the watch off my wrist.

Don’t be mad. I knew he would.

I stopped.

I read that line again.

I knew he would.

I’ve known your brother for fifty-six years. I know him better than he knows himself. Rick has always

reached for the shiny thing. Ever since he was a little boy. Christmas morning, he’d grab the biggest box first. Every time. Didn’t matter what was inside.

So when I told him three times I wanted to be buried with that watch, I wasn’t really telling him.

I was testing him.

Here’s what you need to know.

The watch on my wrist is not the watch the railroad gave me.

I put the letter down.

I stared at it.

I picked it up again.

In 2019, after my first heart attack, I took my watch to Mr. Lindgren at Lindgren Jewelers on Main Street. To get it cleaned. It was running slow.

While I was there, I asked Ole Lindgren a question. I said, Ole, can you make me a copy? Something that looks exactly like this. Same size. Same color. Same face. Same engraving on the back. But cheap.

Ole looked at me like I was crazy.

He said, Gene, why on earth would you want a cheap copy of your railroad watch?

I said, Because I’ve got a son in Phoenix who’s going to try to take it off my body before they close the lid.

I started laughing.

I couldn’t help it.

I sat in my father’s kitchen chair, with tears running down my face, and laughed.

Ole thought I was joking. Then he saw I wasn’t.

He made it. Took him two months. He found a gold-tone case from a company in China. A quartz movement. A battery. He matched the face. He engraved the back exactly like the original.

Cost me thirty-eight dollars.

I’ve been wearing the copy since September 2019.

You never noticed. Neither did anybody. Not even the boys at DaVita.

The real one is in the velvet box.

I looked at the velvet box.

Sitting on the kitchen table. Dark blue. Worn shiny at the corners.

I didn’t open it yet.

I kept reading.

Now. You’re probably wondering. Why would I go to all this trouble? Why not just give you the watch?

Why not just tell Rick no?

Because Rick needed to show you who he is.

And you needed to see it.

You’ve been making excuses for your brother your whole life, Laurie. Rick’s busy. Rick’s far away. Rick has his own family. Rick’s going through a hard time.

I know. I heard you. Every time I said your brother should help, you defended him.

You’re a good sister. Better than he deserves.

But you needed to see it with your own eyes. You needed to watch him reach into my casket.

Because if I just told you, you’d never believe me.

I wiped my eyes.

I turned to the second page.

Now here’s the part that’s going to make you laugh.

When Ole made the copy, I asked him to add one thing. On the inside of the case back. Where nobody would see it unless they opened it up.

You can’t open the back of a watch without a special tool. Only a jeweler has one.

Rick’s going to try to sell that watch. I know he is. I’ve known for two years. Your brother’s in trouble with money. He thinks I don’t know. I know.

He’s going to take it to a jeweler in Phoenix. For an appraisal. Because a man like Rick always wants to know what something’s worth before he decides if he cares about it.

And the jeweler’s going to open the back.

And he’s going to read what’s inside.

I’m not going to tell you what it says. That’s between me and your brother.

But I’ll tell you this. When he finds out, he’s going to call you. Yelling. He always yells when he’s scared.

When he calls, tell him the truth.

Then give him the other envelope.

What other envelope? I thought.

I looked in the gray box.

There was nothing else in it.

I kept reading.

The other envelope is in the velvet box. Under the watch.

Don’t read it. It’s for Rick.

Only give it to him if he calls. If he never calls, burn it. If he calls, he’s ready.

I turned to the third page.

The handwriting was worse here. Shakier. Like he’d written it on a different day. A worse day.

Laurie.

I need to tell you something I should have told you a long time ago.

When you were little, I didn’t pay enough attention to you. I know that. I was always watching Rick. His games. His throws. His trophies. I framed his picture in the hallway.

I never framed anything of yours.

I’m sorry.

I was a railroad man. I spent twenty-five years watching the loud cars. The ones that banged and screeched and came off the track. You learn to listen for the trouble.

I didn’t know how to listen for the quiet ones. The ones that just keep running. That never come off the track. That carry everything and never make a sound.

You were the quiet one, Laurie.

You carried everything.

And I didn’t hear it until the end.

The watch is yours. The real one. It was always going to be yours.

I told you I wanted to be buried with it. I lied. I’m sorry. It was the only way to keep it safe from your brother until the right time.

A man ought to keep track of time.

Look in the velvet box. You’ll see I did.

Love,

Dad

I read it again.

Then I read it a third time.

Then I opened the velvet box.

Inside, on a bed of white satin, was the watch.

The real one.

Fourteen-karat gold. A Hamilton. White face. Black Roman numerals. A little second hand.

Not moving.

It hadn’t been wound since 2019.

I picked it up.

It was heavier than I expected. Much heavier. Real gold is heavy.

I turned it over.

EUGENE J. DOMBEK — 25 YEARS FAITHFUL SERVICE — BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD — 1960–1985.

I held it in my left hand.

I turned the crown with my right thumb and finger.

Slowly. Carefully.

Twenty-two turns.

I held it up to my ear.

It started ticking.

Under the watch, folded flat beneath the satin, there were two more things.

The first was a sealed envelope.

RICK.

I didn’t open it.

The second was a small notebook.

Black. Spiral-bound. The kind you buy at Walgreens for a dollar ninety-nine.

On the cover, in Dad’s handwriting:

LAURIE’S TIME.

I opened it.

The first page was dated March 8, 2021.

The day of his first dialysis appointment.

Mon. 3/8/21. DaVita. L. drove. 3:05 – 7:20. 4 hrs 15 min. She graded spelling tests. Read me the Register-Mail. Made chicken & rice after.

The next line.

Wed. 3/10/21. DaVita. L. drove. 3:00 – 7:15. 4 hrs 15 min. She brought her own dinner. Ate in the car. Said she wasn’t hungry.

The next.

Fri. 3/12/21. DaVita. L. drove. 3:10 – 7:30. 4 hrs 20 min. Toenails after. She didn’t make a face. I would have.

I turned the page.

And the next.

Every single one.

Every Monday. Every Wednesday. Every Friday.

For four years.

Mon. 2/6/23. Ice storm. Power out. L. came at 11 PM. Switched oxygen tank by flashlight. Stayed till morning. Slept in the recliner. Her back hurt. She said it didn’t.

Fri. 8/18/23. L. missed Emma’s birthday dinner to drive me. Didn’t tell me. Emma called me. Told me.

Wed. 4/17/24. L. had pneumonia. Drove me anyway. Coughed the whole time. I told her go home. She said “I’m fine, Dad.” She wasn’t fine.

Mon. 11/4/24. L.’s anniversary. 29 yrs with Tom. She drove me. Tom came too. Brought cake. We ate it in the DaVita parking lot.

I turned to the last page.

It was dated the day before he died.

Fri. 6/13/25. DaVita. L. drove. 3:00 – 7:10. 4 hrs 10 min. Last one, I think. Told her thank you. For everything. Should have said it four years ago.

And under that, a total.

Written carefully. Underlined twice.

TOTAL: 612 trips. 2,594 hours.

Plus ice storms. Plus toenails. Plus everything I didn’t write down.

A man ought to keep track of time.

So I did.

I sat at my father’s kitchen table until two in the morning.

Holding the gold watch. Ticking.

Holding the black notebook.

Laughing.

Crying.

Both.

At the same time.

He’d been keeping track.

All four years.

Every hour.

I’d thought he didn’t notice.

I’d thought he was too proud to see it. Too embarrassed. Too sick.

I’d thought he was still watching Rick. The loud car. The shiny one.

He was watching me.

He wrote it down.

Every single time.

Thursday morning, at exactly 9:02, my cell phone rang.

“WHAT DID DAD DO? TELL ME WHAT DAD DID!”

In the background, I could hear the jeweler.

“Sir. Sir, please. Would you like me to read you the rest of the inscription?”

“No! I don’t—fine. Fine. Read it.”

I sat in Dad’s chair.

I listened.

The jeweler’s voice came through the phone. Calm. Steady. Professional.

“There is an engraving,” he said, “on the inside of the case back. In small script. It reads as follows.”

He cleared his throat.

“Rick — If you’re reading this, you took it off my wrist. It’s worth thirty-eight dollars. The real one went to the child who kept time with me. Call your sister. She has something for you. — Dad.”

The line went silent.

Completely silent.

For a long time.

Then I heard the jeweler again.

Quieter now.

“Sir,” he said. “I’m sorry. As I was explaining. The case is gold-tone brass. The movement is a Japanese quartz. Battery-operated. The retail value is approximately forty dollars. I can’t—I’m sorry. It isn’t the watch you described.”

Rick didn’t say anything.

I heard a door open. Footsteps. A car door.

Then his voice. In the phone. Not yelling anymore.

Quiet.

Shaking.

“Laurie,” he said. “Did you know?”

“I found out Sunday night,” I said. “Dad left me a letter.”

Rick didn’t say anything.

“He had Ole Lindgren make a copy,” I said. “In 2019. After his first heart attack. He’s been wearing it for six years.”

“Six years,” Rick said.

“He knew you’d take it,” I said.

I heard him breathing. Ragged.

“Call your sister,” Rick said. “She has something for you.”

“I do.”

“What is it?”

“A letter,” I said. “From Dad. In an envelope. With your name on it.”

“What does it say?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He told me not to read it.”

Rick was quiet for a long time.

“I was going to sell it,” he said finally.

I didn’t say anything.

“The watch,” Rick said. “I took it to a jeweler in Scottsdale this morning. Bergman’s. On Fifth Avenue. I told him it was a vintage Hamilton. Fourteen-karat. I said I thought it was worth eight or nine thousand.”

He laughed. A terrible laugh.

“I needed the money, Laurie,” he said.

“Dad knew that too,” I said.

“What?”

“He wrote it in the letter,” I said. “He said, Your brother’s in trouble with money. He thinks I don’t know. I know.”

Rick made a sound.

Something I’d never heard my brother make before.

Not since we were kids.

He was crying.

“I lost the company,” he said. “In March. The development company. We had three strip malls in Mesa. Tenants pulled out. The bank called the loans. I couldn’t cover them.”

I closed my eyes.

“Brittany doesn’t know how bad it is,” he said. “Nobody knows. I’ve been borrowing against the house. I’m three months behind on the boat. I sold the Range Rover in April. I’ve been driving a rental car I can’t afford.”

“Rick—”

“And Dad died,” he said. “And I flew up there. And I stood at his casket. And I looked at that watch on his wrist. And I thought, That’s nine thousand dollars. That’s three months of mortgage. That’s one thing I don’t have to explain to Brittany.”

“And I thought,” he said. Very quietly. “He doesn’t need it. He’s dead. Laurie doesn’t need it. She doesn’t care about stuff. She’s never cared about stuff.”

He was sobbing now.

“And I thought, I’m the son. I’m the one he was proud of. I’m the one he framed.”

“Rick.”

“The son who was important,” he said. “I said that. In front of everybody. In front of Aunt Joyce. In front of Dad.”

I didn’t say anything.

There wasn’t anything to say.

“Laurie,” Rick said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Okay.”

“What did you do?” he said. “When he was sick. All those years. What did you actually do?”

I looked at the black notebook on the kitchen table.

LAURIE’S TIME.

“Do you really want to know?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Then come home,” I said.

He came on Saturday.

He drove.

Not a rental Lexus. A Ford Fusion with a cracked windshield. Twenty-two hours from Phoenix to Galesburg. He drove straight through. He slept for three hours at a rest stop in Oklahoma.

He knocked on the door of the house on East Fremont at 4:15 on Saturday afternoon.

I opened it.

He looked terrible.

Unshaven. Red-eyed. In a wrinkled polo shirt and jeans. No charcoal suit. No silk tie. No sunglasses.

He was holding the fake watch in his hand.

“Hi, sis,” he said.

“Hi, Rick.”

We sat at the kitchen table.

Me in Dad’s chair. Rick in Mom’s.

He put the fake watch on the table between us.

Gold-tone brass. Japanese quartz. Thirty-eight dollars.

It was still ticking.

I slid the black notebook across the table to him.

He looked at the cover.

LAURIE’S TIME.

He opened it.

He read it for an hour.

He didn’t say anything.

Every page. Every line. Every Monday. Every Wednesday. Every Friday.

She graded spelling tests.

Toenails after. She didn’t make a face.

Ice storm. Power out. Switched oxygen tank by flashlight.

L. missed Emma’s birthday dinner to drive me.

L. had pneumonia. Drove me anyway.

When he got to the last page, he stopped.

Fri. 6/13/25. Last one, I think. Told her thank you. For everything. Should have said it four years ago.

TOTAL: 612 trips. 2,594 hours.

Rick put the notebook down.

He put his face in his hands.

“Two thousand five hundred and ninety-four hours,” he said through his fingers.

“Plus toenails,” I said.

He laughed. A wet, broken laugh.

“Plus ice storms,” he said.

“Plus everything he didn’t write down,” I said.

He lifted his head.

“I called him twice a year,” he said. “Christmas. His birthday. Five minutes. Ten if he kept me on.”

“I know.”

“Do you know how many hours that is?” Rick said. “Over four years? Eight calls?”

I didn’t answer.

“About an hour,” Rick said. “One hour. Total.”

He looked at the notebook.

“You gave him two thousand five hundred and ninety-four,” he said. “I gave him one.”

I took the envelope out of the velvet box.

RICK.

I slid it across the table.

He looked at it.

His hands were shaking.

“Did you read it?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Dad said it was for you.”

He opened it.

One sheet of paper. Lined. Torn from the same spiral notebook.

He read it.

He read it again.

Then he put it down on the table.

And he slid it back to me.

“Read it,” he said. “Please. I want you to know.”

I picked it up.

Dad’s handwriting. Shaky. Shakier than mine.

Rick,

If you’re reading this, you called your sister.

Good.

That means you’re ready.

I know about the company. I know about the loans. I know you sold the car. Your son Mason told me on the phone at Christmas. He said, “Grandpa, Daddy cries in the garage.” He’s seven. He didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to tell.

I’m not angry about the watch, son. I knew you’d take it. That’s why I gave you the fake one.

Not to punish you.

To teach you.

When you were little, you always grabbed the biggest box on Christmas morning. Every year. You never once looked at what was inside first. You just wanted the big one. The shiny one.

One year, your mother wrapped a pair of socks in a refrigerator box. Just to see. You tore into it. You found socks. You cried for an hour.

Your sister got a little box that year. Tiny. You laughed at her. Inside was a bracelet your grandmother left her. Real silver. She still wears it.

Rick, you’ve been grabbing the big box your whole life. The big house. The big boat. The big company. The big watch on a dead man’s wrist.

And every time, you open it and find socks.

I spent twenty-five years in that railroad yard. You know what I learned?

The loud cars aren’t the important ones. The loud cars are the ones with something wrong. A cracked wheel. A bad bearing. A loose coupler. They bang and screech and everybody looks at them.

The important cars are the quiet ones. The ones that carry the load. Mile after mile. Year after year. Never making a sound. Never asking for anything.

Your sister is a quiet car, Rick.

She carried me for four years. She carried your mother before that. She’s carried you your whole life. Every time you didn’t come home, she covered for you. Every time I asked where you were, she said you were busy.

She never once complained.

You said you were the son who was important.

You were. You still are. You’re my son. I love you. I always will.

But you’re not the child who mattered most in the end.

She is.

Not because I loved her more.

Because she showed up.

The watch you’re holding is worth thirty-eight dollars. It runs on a battery. It’ll keep perfect time for about five years. Then it’ll stop.

The real watch is with your sister. It runs on a spring. You have to wind it every morning. Twenty-two turns. If you forget, it stops.

That’s the difference, son.

The cheap one keeps time by itself. You don’t have to do anything.

The real one only keeps time if you show up every morning and wind it.

I want you to keep the cheap one.

Wear it. Every day. And every time you look at it, I want you to think about what it cost. Thirty-eight dollars. And what it didn’t cost you. Nothing. You didn’t have to wind it. You didn’t have to show up.

And then I want you to call your sister.

Not twice a year. Every week.

And I want you to call Mason. Every night. Go out to the garage and cry if you have to. Then go inside and read him a story.

Wind the real watch, Rick.

Before it’s too late.

Love,

Dad

P.S. Ole Lindgren says the battery in your watch is good till 2030. That gives you five years. Use them.

I put the letter down.

Rick was crying so hard he couldn’t breathe.

He put his head down on the kitchen table. On Mom’s side. His shoulders shaking.

I’d never seen my brother cry. Not when Mom died. Not when his first marriage ended. Not when Dad died.

He cried at our father’s kitchen table for twenty minutes.

I didn’t stop him.

When he could talk again, he lifted his head.

“Mason told him,” he said. “That I cry in the garage.”

“He did.”

“I didn’t know Mason knew.”

“Kids always know,” I said. “I teach fourth grade. They always know.”

Rick picked up the fake watch.

He held it in his palm.

Gold-tone brass. Thirty-eight dollars. Ticking.

He turned it over. He couldn’t open the back. You need a special tool.

But he knew what was inside now.

Call your sister. She has something for you.

“I’m sorry, Laurie,” he said. “For the funeral. For what I said. For taking it. For everything.”

“I know.”

“For thirty years,” he said. “For not coming home. For making you do everything.”

“I know, Rick.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” he asked. “Why didn’t you ever call me and say, Rick, I need help. Dad needs you. Come home.”

I thought about it.

“Because I’m a quiet car,” I said.

Rick laughed. Through his tears.

“Dad would say that,” he said.

“He did,” I said. “In my letter.”

Rick stayed for a week.

He slept in his old bedroom. The one with the football trophies still on the shelf. The Register-Mail sports page still framed in the hallway.

On Monday, he went to Hope Cemetery.

By himself.

He stood at Dad’s grave for an hour. I watched from the car.

I don’t know what he said.

I didn’t ask.

On Tuesday, he went to DaVita.

He walked in and asked for Denise. The nurse who said He talked about you every time.

He asked her what it was like. For Dad. The four hours. The needles. The machines.

She showed him the chair. The vinyl one by the window. Where Dad sat. Three times a week. For four years.

Rick sat in it.

Denise told me later that he sat there for two hours. With his hands on the armrests. Looking out the window.

“He asked me if your dad ever talked about him,” Denise said.

“What did you tell him?”

Denise was quiet for a moment.

“I told him the truth,” she said. “That your father talked about his son in Phoenix every single session. How proud he was. How he hoped he’d come home.”

She looked at me.

“And that every single session,” she said, “the person sitting next to him was you.”

On Wednesday, he went to Lindgren Jewelers on Main Street.

Ole Lindgren is eighty-nine. Still works three days a week. His granddaughter runs the store now.

Rick showed him the fake watch.

Ole looked at it. He looked at Rick.

“So you’re the son,” Ole said.

“I’m the son.”

Ole nodded slowly.

“Your father came in here every six months,” he said. “For six years. To have me check the battery. And to ask me if you’d called.”

Rick stared at him.

“Every time,” Ole said. “He’d hand me the watch. I’d check it. And he’d say, Ole, has my boy been in? Like you might’ve come home and stopped by without telling him.”

He handed the watch back to Rick.

“You never had,” Ole said.

On Thursday, Rick called his son.

From Dad’s kitchen. At seven o’clock. Phoenix time five o’clock.

I heard him through the wall.

“Mason? Hey, buddy. It’s Daddy.”

A long pause.

“I know, buddy. I know I’ve been sad. Grandpa died.”

Another pause.

“Yeah. I know you told Grandpa. At Christmas. About the garage. That’s okay. You did the right thing.”

His voice cracked.

“Mason,” he said. “Can I tell you a story? About Grandpa? About a watch?”

He talked to his son for two hours.

On Friday, the day before he left, Rick sat at the kitchen table with me.

Six-fifteen in the morning.

I had the real watch in my hand.

The gold Hamilton. Fourteen-karat. 25 YEARS FAITHFUL SERVICE.

I’d been winding it every morning. At six-fifteen. In Dad’s chair. Twenty-two turns.

Rick watched me do it.

“Can I try?” he said.

I looked at him.

I handed him the watch.

He held it in his left hand. He turned the crown with his right thumb and finger. Slowly. Carefully.

“How many?” he asked.

“Twenty-two.”

He counted out loud.

“One. Two. Three.”

He got to twenty-two.

He held it up to his ear.

It was ticking.

He closed his eyes.

“He did this every morning,” Rick said. “For forty years.”

“Every morning.”

“And then for six years,” Rick said, “he didn’t. Because the real one was in a box in his closet. And he was wearing a fake one that didn’t need winding.”

He opened his eyes.

“Why?” he said. “Why would he give it up? The thing he loved most? The thing he did every morning?”

I looked at my brother.

“Because he didn’t need it anymore,” I said.

Rick looked at me.

“He had somebody else to keep track of,” I said.

I picked up the black notebook.

LAURIE’S TIME.

“He wasn’t winding the watch,” I said. “He was winding this.”

Rick handed me back the real watch.

I put it on.

My left wrist. It was too big. It slid around. I’d have to get a link taken out. Ole said he’d do it for free.

Rick put on the fake one.

His left wrist. Gold-tone brass. Thirty-eight dollars. Battery good till 2030.

We sat there together.

At our father’s kitchen table.

Wearing two watches.

One real. One fake.

Both ticking.

That was four months ago.

Rick calls me every Sunday now.

Seven o’clock my time. Five o’clock his.

He’s never missed one.

The first few calls were short. Awkward. Ten minutes. He didn’t know what to say.

Now they last an hour.

He tells me about Mason. About Brittany. About the apartment they moved into after the bank took the house in Scottsdale. Two bedrooms. Near Mason’s school.

He tells me about his new job. Selling insurance again. For a small agency in Tempe. Less money. Better hours.

He’s home every night at six.

He reads to Mason. Every night.

He doesn’t cry in the garage anymore.

In September, he drove back to Galesburg.

For Dad’s birthday. September fourteenth. He would have been ninety-one.

He brought Mason.

Seven years old. Sandy hair. Rick’s chin. He’d never been to Illinois. He’d never seen snow. He’d never seen a train yard.

We took him to the BNSF yard on the south side of town. The hump yard. Where Dad worked for twenty-five years.

We stood at the fence and watched the cars come over the hump. Rolling down into the classification tracks. Banging into each other. Coupling.

Mason pressed his face against the fence.

“Which ones are the quiet ones?” he asked.

Rick looked at me.

I looked at Rick.

“You’ve been telling him the story,” I said.

“Every night,” Rick said. “He asks for it. Tell me about the quiet cars, Daddy.”

Rick knelt down next to his son.

He pointed at a long string of grain hoppers. Rolling slowly down the track. Steady. Not making a sound.

“Those,” he said. “The ones that just keep going. That carry everything. That never come off the track.”

Mason looked at the hoppers for a long time.

“Like Aunt Laurie,” he said.

Rick put his hand on his son’s head.

“Exactly like Aunt Laurie,” he said.

That afternoon, we went to Hope Cemetery.

All three of us. Me. Rick. Mason.

We stood at Dad’s grave. A simple granite stone. Next to Mom’s.

EUGENE J. DOMBEK — 1934–2025 — HUSBAND. FATHER. RAILROAD MAN.

A MAN OUGHT TO KEEP TRACK OF TIME.

I’d picked the inscription. Rick agreed.

Rick knelt down.

He took off the fake watch.

Gold-tone brass. Thirty-eight dollars.

He looked at it for a long time.

Then he dug a little hole. With his fingers. At the base of the headstone. In the grass.

He put the fake watch in it.

He covered it with dirt.

“Rick,” I said. “Dad said to keep it. To wear it. Every day.”

Rick stood up.

He brushed the dirt off his hands.

“Dad wanted to be buried with a watch,” he said quietly. “I took it off his wrist. In front of everybody.”

He looked at the little patch of disturbed dirt.

“I’m giving it back,” he said.

Mason was watching.

“Daddy,” he said. “What time is it now? If you don’t have a watch?”

Rick looked at his son.

He looked at me.

At my left wrist. At the gold Hamilton. Twenty-two turns every morning.

“Ask Aunt Laurie,” Rick said.

Mason looked at me.

I held out my wrist.

He looked at the watch. At the white face. At the black Roman numerals. At the little second hand sweeping around in a perfect circle.

“It’s 3:47,” I said.

Mason nodded seriously.

“How do you know it’s right?” he asked.

I knelt down next to my nephew.

“Because I wind it every morning,” I said. “Twenty-two turns. At six-fifteen. In Grandpa’s chair.”

“Every morning?”

“Every morning.”

“What if you forget?”

“Then it stops,” I said. “And it’s not right anymore.”

Mason thought about that.

“So it only works,” he said slowly, “if you show up.”

Rick made a sound behind me.

I looked up.

He was crying again. Standing at our father’s grave. In the September sun.

“Yeah, buddy,” he said. “It only works if you show up.”

Rick did one more thing before he left.

He went back to DaVita.

He asked Denise if they needed volunteers.

Drivers. For patients who can’t drive themselves. Who don’t have family nearby. Who sit alone for four hours, three times a week.

Denise said they always need drivers.

Rick said he lives in Phoenix.

Denise said there’s a DaVita in Tempe.

He started in October.

Every Saturday. He drives a man named Hector to dialysis. Eighty-one. A retired copper miner from Globe. His wife died in 2022. His kids live in California.

Rick picks him up at noon. Sits with him for four hours. Drives him home at five.

Hector tells him stories about the mines. Rick tells him stories about the railroad.

Hector says Rick’s terrible at Wheel of Fortune.

Rick says Hector cheats.

Last week, a package came in the mail.

From Phoenix.

A small padded envelope. Rick’s handwriting on the front.

Inside was a notebook.

Black. Spiral-bound. A dollar ninety-nine at Walgreens.

On the cover, in Rick’s handwriting:

RICK’S TIME.

I opened it.

The first page was dated October 4.

Sat. 10/4/25. DaVita Tempe. Drove Hector. 12:00 – 5:15. 5 hrs 15 min. He told me about the cave-in at the Old Dominion mine in 1967. He was 23. He dug out two men with his hands. I didn’t say anything. I just listened.

Sat. 10/11/25. DaVita Tempe. Drove Hector. 12:00 – 5:00. 5 hrs. He fell asleep halfway through. I sat there anyway. Held his hand. Like Laurie did.

Sun. 10/12/25. Called Laurie. 7 PM her time. 1 hr 10 min. Told her about Hector. She cried. I think that’s good.

Every night. Read to Mason. 30 min. Tonight it was the quiet cars again.

There were twelve pages.

Every Saturday with Hector. Every Sunday with me. Every night with Mason.

At the bottom of the last page, a total. Written carefully. Underlined twice.

TOTAL SO FAR: 74 hours.

Long way to go.

A man ought to keep track of time.

And under that, one more line.

Battery’s good till 2030. I don’t need it. I’m winding my own now.

I sat at my father’s kitchen table holding my brother’s notebook.

Wearing my father’s watch.

It was 6:15 in the morning.

I took off the watch. I held it in my left hand. I turned the crown with my right thumb and finger.

Twenty-two turns.

I held it up to my ear.

Ticking.

People ask me sometimes about the funeral.

About my brother reaching into the casket. About the gold watch going into his jacket pocket in front of everybody. About the son who was important.

They ask why I didn’t fight. Why I just said Alright, Rick.

They think I was weak.

I tell them the truth.

My father spent twenty-five years in a railroad yard listening for trouble.

He knew which cars were going to come off the track before they did.

He knew his son would reach into his casket.

So he gave him something to reach for.

Something shiny. Something heavy-looking. Something gold-tone. Worth thirty-eight dollars.

With a message inside that he’d only find when he tried to sell it.

Call your sister.

And he gave me something too.

Not the watch.

The watch was nice. The watch was gold. The watch had his name on it.

But the thing he really gave me was a black notebook from Walgreens.

Six hundred and twelve trips.

Two thousand five hundred and ninety-four hours.

Plus ice storms. Plus toenails. Plus everything he didn’t write down.

For four years, I thought my father didn’t see me.

I thought he was still watching the loud car. The football star. The framed sports page in the hallway.

I thought the quiet cars didn’t get noticed.

I was wrong.

He was keeping track.

The whole time.

Every Monday. Every Wednesday. Every Friday.

In a notebook he hid in a fireproof box behind his hats.

So that when he was gone, and his son reached for the shiny thing, and his daughter said Alright, Rick and walked away, she’d go home and open the box.

And find out what he’d been doing every morning for six years instead of winding his watch.

He was winding me.