Free The Home for Wayward Clocks by Kathie Giorgio Page A

hadn’t worked in all the time she had it, that she’d just let it sit silently on her dresser. James couldn’t imagine walking past a muted clock for years and never once attempting to resurrect it. When he fixed it, he felt like he performed open heart surgery. More than that; he imagined he gave that clock back its soul. He found all original parts in his skeleton boxes and in antique shops all around Iowa and Wisconsin. When that clock chimed for the first time in decades, James sat back and applauded. He applauded the clock as much as himself. James fixed it; but it remembered its voice and heart and it used them well.
    When the woman picked up her clock and heard the voice for the first time, a flush went around her cheeks and up to her eyebrows. When the chime stopped, she whispered her thanks, whispered as if her own voice wasn’t worthy next to the sound of that song. James watched the way she touched the clock; first with the tips of her fingers, then sliding her whole palm over its body. She loved that clock and for that moment, James loved her too and forgave her ignorance.
    But several years later, the clock came back when another woman found it in the graveyard. She held the clock like it was the ugliest thing on earth. She dumped it on him, dumped it like an abandoned baby or a box of unwanted puppies. When James caught it, cradled it against his chest, all its parts jangled inside. There wasn’t one working part left out of all that he’d so painstakingly replaced and repaired in its body; even the hands hung loose and broken. But it was the dirt that was unforgivable. There was loose dirt pushed up through the clock’s skin, through its legs and through cracks into its insides.
    No clock deserved that. No clock deserved this abuse. Nothing and no one belonged in the dirt. James knew what that was like; he understood the darkness and the smell of heavy dankness pressing down until it seemed that there was no air at all. The first thing he did was take the clock down to his shop and shine a light upon it. A warm and big light that illuminated the clock’s skin and the sadness in its face. And then James started to clean.
    Most of the parts were tucked away inside, but they needed to be individually washed and straightened and oiled. It took James months to restore it. It was like putting an entire life back together, piece by piece.
    The original woman, that whispering woman, showed up at James’ door a couple months after he finally fixed the clock. She told him some story about losing the clock and asked if there were any others like it. She said she missed the clock’s voice. James told her no, straight out and flat, and then he shut the door in her face. He forgave her once. But he never made a mistake twice.
    From the other side of his door, James listened as the whispering woman cried. The clock knew and grew sadder still, but James couldn’t let it go. Not in good conscience. Not to her, definitely not to her. She didn’t deserve that clock. And it didn’t deserve her.
    Standing by it now, listening to the hesitation in its tick, thinking about the graveyard, James tried to let it know that everything was okay. It was safe.
    All James’ clocks were safe.
    J ames had to go out again that day, but he waited awhile, catching his breath, building his nerve. He could only handle people a little at a time and dealing with Sophie and with his memories of the two mantel clock women were enough for one morning. But there were things he needed at the grocery store and so he steeled himself with lunch before heading back out. He told himself, like he told himself every day, afternoons were a dead time in a grocery store. Most people do their shopping in the morning or on their way home from work. He wouldn’t have to talk much, maybe not at all, he might just be able to buy the necessities, pay with cash and a quick smile, and then go. Bolstering his spirits, James grabbed his little cart and took off