I dropped dad’s watch in the water.
Every year I would pray I was big enough to help push the
boat over the corrugated shallows of the long, long bay to home, but I wasn’t. Then.
I stood at the bow and looked back to him, my uncle, my brother,
pushing so that the tiny waves tip, tip, tipped at the fibreglass under my
feet.
He came towards me with his brown legs leaving a bow wave of
their own, held out his grey singlet bunched in a huge hand and I took it, and
the glint of the wide band caught the sun as the watch fell away.
In a country of quiet
men, he was king. He lowered his head so that you could almost see the words others
would have roared disappear into the thick hair covering his chest. He blinked
once, heavily, raised his head; eyes searching out the trailer waiting on the
empty beach. Put his hand back to the heavy boat, pushed.
I was back on the beach once the tide was miles away. Scurrying
up and down trying to take in every one of the tiny pools left behind. Mum was
up on the dune, hiding, making sure I didn’t swim out to sea when I didn’t find
it.
I found it.
It never worked again, but he kept it, still does.
The man keeps nothing, but he has that watch. I imagine him
holding it sometimes, knowing how much I love him.
