Free The Start of Everything by Emily Winslow Page A

called when I didn’t think he would be home, to tell his machine where I’d left his box.
    That evening, the phone in my house rang.
    I counted to four. That’s how many times the phone is supposed to ring before the machine picks up.
    Five.
    That wasn’t supposed to happen. Six. Seven.
    It kept ringing. My fork clattered onto my plate, bouncing up once then landing on my half-eaten pork chop.
    I wiped my mouth with kitchen roll. I got up and stood in the hallway.
    I watched it ring.

    “I’ve been phoning you,” George said.
    He blocked my way down Senate House Passage. I was on my way to work.
    “I don’t like phones,” I said.
    “I got the box.”
    I nodded. I’d filled it with Dad’s work. George could use it.
    “Where is it?”
    “You got the box,” I parroted. How could he ask me where it is if he’s just said he got it?
    He got close to me and hissed right down at the top of my head. “The watch, Mathilde. Your father promised it to me. We had an understanding.”
    My eyes were right in front of his neck. He swallowed.
    “All right,” I said, to make him go away. “I have to go to work now.”
    He didn’t move. He swallowed again. “You’ll bring it tomorrow?”
    “Yes!” I said. I hunched my shoulders up around my ears.
    He stepped aside, pivoting on one foot like he was a door swinging open. I pushed through, my feet churning on the slick, round cobbles.

    I opened up the charity-shop bags. They were still heaped by the back door.
    I looked inside every pocket and every sock. Dad’s watch wasn’t there.
    I looked upstairs. None of the empty drawers had a watch in it. It hadn’t been filed with any papers. It wasn’t under his mattress.
    I sat on the braided rug with my back up against Dad’s bed frame. I rested my forehead in my hand.
    Dad’s watch. It had a leather band. The little hairs on his wrist had curled up around its edges. He always wore it.
    I whipped my head up so fast that I cricked my neck. I galloped down the steps.
    My bag was on the chair in the lounge, where I always dropped it when I came in. Some things stay the same. I always drop my bag there. My bag always has my wallet and my notebook in it. I carry pens. Every day I add an apple. It’s not often that I take something away.
    The hospital had sent me a small padded envelope they called Dad’s “effects.” It had surprised me that you could fit the effect of a person into an envelope. But I knew what they meant, really. It contained his things.
    I scrounged it up from the bottom of my bag. I’d willed myself to forget it was there.
    I uncurled the top of it, and spilled the contents onto the coffee table: his wallet, his wedding ring, and his watch.
    I put the watch back into my purse, for George. He could have it. I didn’t care.
    I picked up the wedding band and looked through it. The only time Dad had taken it off was when he dated Amy Banning. Then, after the video evening with Luke, he’d put it back on again.

    The next morning was Friday, the day of Dad’s memorial.
    I was supposed to wear black. I had a black dress. I had black tights. I had only brown shoes. I didn’t know if that was allowed.
    I put everything on and rubbed the shoes with black shoe polish. That only made them look dirty.
    I scrubbed my hands under a rushing tap, wrapping them around the white soap bar over and over. I added a cardigan, because it had suddenly gone cold out. The sweater was so dark a blue that it was almost black. I’d done my best.
    I went to work. The service would start at half-three at Great St. Mary’s church across the road. Enid wore a black blouse and said she’d worn it specially. Lucy and Trevor also said they would come, but they didn’t have black on.
    There was another letter from Stephen.
Katja —
I apologise for my previous letter. I was distraught. It was only a calf, after all. I retract my desperation .
Alistair has lodgers coming, so I’m moving on. I’ve a signing in London for the new