My son found out because he saw a photograph of the watch on the man’s page. He called me that night and asked why I had given his father’s watch to the person who killed him. I told him I didn’t give it to him because I forgave him, and I didn’t give it to him because I thought he deserved it. I gave it to him because for nine years he had written to me about the same thing: the sound of my husband’s watch hitting the pavement after the crash. He said he could still hear it whenever he closed his eyes. I wanted him to have something that could make that memory different. My son said, “You don’t get to decide what my father’s things mean.”
I told him he was right about that. I said the watch had belonged to his father, and he had every right to be angry that I gave it away without telling him. But I also told him what happened at the diner, how the man’s hands shook when he saw it, and how he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. He finally asked me why I had waited nine years to answer even one of his letters. I told him because every letter made me hate him less, and I wasn’t ready to hate him less. Then he went quiet and said, “Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to hate him forever.” I told him I didn’t know what his father would have wanted, but I knew what carrying that hatred had done to me.
My son didn’t call me again for three weeks. Then one Sunday morning, he showed up at my door with a small box in his hands. He had found an old photograph of his father wearing the watch, and he said he wanted to know exactly what I had told the man when I gave it to him. I told him I said, “You don’t get to keep the years you took from us, but you can keep this reminder that someone survived them.” My son cried, and then he finally understood why I had done it, even if he still didn’t agree with me. Before he left, he asked whether I regretted giving it away. I said, “I regret the accident, I regret the years, and I regret hurting you—but I don’t regret giving one piece of your father’s life to someone who had spent nine years wishing he could give it back.”
