“First you have to find the crank key,” she instructed with an impressive air of confidence. “Every clock has its own one. Dad sells it with the clock.” Tom always had a little envelope taped to the back of each clock with its key.
Molly led B?o over to a tall clock carved out of walnut wood. Majestic and proud, it stood nearly eight feet tall. “This one has the Whittington chimes.” She sounded like she was teaching a class in school, proud of the knowledge she could share.
“You can never let the chimes fall to the bottom, it’s not good for the clock.” She pointed to the brass pendulum suspended on gold chains in the glass window box.
She wasn’t sure if B?o understood everything she was saying, so she tried to speak slowly and point with her hands.
“Here it is.” She took the key from the envelope taped in the back and handed it to B?o. “Now we use the crank to lift up the bells that power the clock.”
She climbed on top of the stool and pulled open the clock’s top glass window that protected the dial. She inserted the little key and began to turn it clockwise until the right weighted pendulum lifted. Once it was fully suspended, she put the key in the left hole and did the same.
She then took her finger to the brass pendulum in the center and gave it a little push so it would initiate the ticking again.
B?o took to the job instantly and was soon moving from clock to clock, making sure each one had been properly wound with its respective key.
“It’s almost three o’clock,” Grace announced, tapping her finger on her own wristwatch, the same one Tom had given to her years before on her late father-in-law’s instruction.
Molly knitted her hands. “Oh, B?o, you’re going to love this.”
She looked over at the tall presidential grandfather clock and waited until it was precisely three, when suddenly the space was filled with a symphony of chimes.
B?o’s smile was electric as the room exploded in melody.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Molly exclaimed with such glee in her voice. Seeing B?o’s reaction made her return to her own childhood memories of hearing the clock for the first time.
Tom approached Grace and put his arm around her.
“Did you hear I have ‘Aura Lee’ on the rotation this week, Gracie?” He gave her a flirtatious wink. “Do you remember that one, honey?”
Grace blushed in the children’s company. How could she forget the first time her husband had whispered the words “I love you” to her?
They had gone back to the watch store after Tom’s father had suggested his son pick out a watch for her. That evening, as she peered over the glass display case admiring the different antique timepieces, the melody of “Aura Lee” soon filled the air. Tom had pulled her to his chest as they began to dance to the clock’s bells. He then whispered in her ear “Do you know the melody of ‘Aura Lee’ is the same as Elvis Presley’s ‘Love Me Tender’?” He began singing the words.
Even so, many years later she could still remember how he whispered “I love you” over the soft sound of the chimes and how he had lifted her fingertips to his lips and kissed them gently, one by one, before kissing her more deeply on the mouth.
Her whole body warmed at the memory.
For as long as she knew Tom, she was aware how much the Golden Hours had helped those who had made it their life’s work. First her father-in-law, then her husband, and then Jack. Now she saw how her daughter was rediscovering its magic through showing B?o how each minute pushed one of the clock’s hands forward.
She smiled. What she wanted to tell Tom, but she’d wait until they were alone, was that his heart was the melody she loved most to hear. She listened to its beating against his chest every night, and it still filled her with wonder.
CHAPTER 59
AS THEIRENGLISH LESSON CAME TO AN END,ANH TOOK HERmarbleized composition book and neatly tucked it into her bag. Dinh studied her movements like a bird-watcher, every gesture of her hand, every quiet glance gave him pleasure.
He had always believed one had to harvest life’s little joys where you could find them. A perfect noodle broth, or a smile from a stranger. When he came to this new country, not knowing a single soul, his mind still haunted by nightmares of his journey and the year and half spent in the refugee camp, the small piece of joy here had always been Anh.
On the days he could coax a smile from her, he felt as if he had won a mountain of gold. And on those few afternoons he managed to make her laugh, he felt like he had been crowned an emperor.
And now, after living under the same roof with her for three months at the motherhouse, he wished every day for one more brick of joy, so that eventually he could build her a house with all those blocks of happiness.
He imagined the three of them, Anh, B?o and himself, underneath this imagined shelter, forging ahead to begin a new life in America.
A comfortable ease fell between them as they waited outside the library for Sister Mary Alice to pick them up. Dinh lifted his head and felt the warm caress of sunshine on his skin.
“How is B?o enjoying his new bicycle?” Dinh asked, sinking his hands into his pockets.
Anh had told him days earlier how Grace had offered B?o a spare bicycle that had once been Molly’s.
