Chapter Five

The bell over the door chimed.

Tom stayed where he was, the letter still open in his hand.

The sound startled him more than he wanted to admit.

The shop had been silent for so long that even the door’s soft clang felt too loud, like it didn’t belong.

He waited for footsteps.

Waited for a voice.

When it came, it wasn’t what he expected.

“Hi,” a small voice said.

Tom looked up.

A boy stood just inside the door. Eight, maybe nine. Baggy sweatshirt, jeans still dusted with playground dirt, sneakers worn down at the heels. He clutched something round and battered in both hands—a small travel clock, the kind that folded shut like a shell.

The air from outside still clung to him—cold and clean, the way air gets when the night’s been longer than the day.

“You fixing things now?” the boy asked.

Tom blinked. Folded the letter. Slipped it into his jacket pocket.

“Not officially,” he said.

The boy hesitated, shifting from foot to foot on the old wood floor, which creaked like it hadn’t had enough weight pass over it lately. Then he stepped forward and set the clock carefully on the counter.

“It used to be my dad’s,” he said. “It doesn’t work right.”

Tom stared at it.

The second hand twitched, but didn’t move.

Dead, but still trying.

He glanced down at the boy’s small hands—grimy fingernails, a scuff of green marker along one thumb—and for half a second he thought about how carefully he had been taught never to touch anything in this shop as a kid.

“You live around here?” Tom asked.

The boy nodded. “Down the road. With my mom.”

Before Tom could ask anything else, the bell jingled again.

The cold came in with it, brushing Tom’s ankles.

A woman stepped inside. Early forties. Dark jeans, trail-dusted boots, wind-tousled hair pulled into a loose bun. She wore a zip-up fleece and carried a messenger bag over one shoulder. Not flashy. Not fragile. Like someone who knew how to carry groceries, laundry, and whatever else life kept handing her.

She smiled when she saw the boy.

Then her eyes found Tom—and something in her paused.

Not alarm.

Not recognition.

Just… a second thought.

Tom straightened without meaning to.

There was something about her face. The shape of it. The way she held herself.

It hit him like a draft through a half-open door.

The photograph.

He didn’t know her. But somehow, his father had.

She crossed to the counter and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” she said, glancing at the old travel clock. “He’s been asking to bring it in. We weren’t sure if the shop was open.”

Tom nodded. “It’s open. Sort of.”

The air between them smelled like the cold and something faintly sweet—maybe the soap she used, or a trace of something baked that morning.

She looked at him for a beat longer than expected, like she couldn’t quite place something that still felt familiar.

“You knew my father?” he asked.

She gave a small shrug. “A little. Enough to bring him a music box once. Said it wasn’t worth the time. Then he showed up at my door two weeks later with it fixed.”

Tom huffed something that might’ve been a laugh. “He did that sometimes.”

She glanced at the tools scattered along the bench. “So you’re taking it over now?”

Tom shook his head. “I fix computers. Different kind of broken.”

Claire smiled faintly. “Broken’s broken. Still takes the same kind of hands.”

There was a silence, but not the awkward kind.

Just the shop being what it was—full of dust, memory, and the soft tick of something still working.

Caleb had wandered a few steps closer to the workbench, peering at an antique pocket watch half-disassembled under a glass dome.

Claire caught it just in time.

“Careful,” she said gently. “We don’t want to break anything.”

Tom watched her draw him back with just a touch on the shoulder.

No fuss. No warnings barked.

When he was that age, one stray hand too close to the wrong tool and Ellis Reed’s voice had snapped through the room like a whip.

“You’ve been gone a while,” Claire said then. “Left when you were, what, twenty-one?”

Tom nodded. “Yeah.”

“I moved here about five years ago,” she added. “Didn’t plan to stay, but… life happens.”

Tom glanced at her more carefully now. No accent. No familiar last name. Not from here. He could hear it now.

“How’d you know when I left?” he asked.

Claire smiled a little, not unkindly. “Your dad talked about you. Not a lot. But enough.”

That caught Tom off guard.

Ellis Reed hadn’t exactly been the sentimental type. Especially not about family.

She went on, smoothing the boy’s hair absently. “He used to let Caleb—” she nodded toward her son, “—poke around in here when he was little. Taught him how to wind a clock once. Showed him how not to strip the gears.”

Tom blinked.

“Thought he didn’t let anyone touch anything.”

Claire laughed, low and short. “Maybe with grownups. Not with kids. Had more patience with them than he gave himself credit for.”

Tom didn’t know what to say to that.

So he didn’t.

Outside, the wind rattled the street signs, and somewhere up the block a dog barked, sharp and sudden.

Claire dug into her bag and pulled out a card—plain, slightly bent at the corner:

Claire Madden – Private Tutoring (All Ages)

[Phone Number]

She slid it across the counter, hesitating just a second longer than necessary.

“Not that you need tutoring,” she said with a small grin. “Just… in case you need anything. You’ve been gone a while. I could show you around.”

Before Tom could answer, Caleb—who had been pretending not to listen—piped up, indignant:

“I wasn’t that small.”

Claire ruffled his hair. “You were much smaller.”

Caleb scowled at her, arms crossed.

Tom gave the boy a mock-serious nod. “She’s right. Way smaller. Practically a pocket version.”

Caleb groaned dramatically and slumped against the counter like it was the worst betrayal in history.

Claire grinned—quick, bright, a little surprised at herself—and nudged Caleb toward the door.

“Thanks again,” she said. “See you around.”

The bell over the door gave a soft, tired jingle as they stepped out into the morning light.

Tom stayed where he was.

The clock on the counter.

The card under his hand.

The photo still waiting in the drawer.

And something else lingering—something he wasn’t ready to name.