Keeping Time

When I got home, a UPS package with my name on it rested at my doorstep. Curious, since I hadn't ordered anything, and most of the time when the UPS man left things at the door, they didn't stay for long. It was a rather small, squarish box, weathered and beaten cardboard wrapped in layers of sticky brown tape.

I picked up the package after struggling a bit to keep my groceries from slipping, and went inside. After I put away my groceries, I picked up the box and scrutinized the label. The label gave away no real information; it was sent using one of the UPS services, but it listed "Hackensack" as its point of origin. I didn't know anyone in Hackensack.

It did have my name and correct address, there was no question about that. Maybe someone ordered something for me? My birthday is next week. Maybe it's from Aunt Sheila. She never knows what to get for me so she usually orders things off of eBay. It was rather awkward the one year she mixed up her orders and I got a set of "Seven Days of the Week" underwear and my five year old niece Lily got a set of santoku knives.

It didn't look like this was the case this time, though.

I opened it up and found a second box inside, this one an ornate, aged wooden box about five inches on all sides. The box was stamped WILMINGTON in copperplate letters. This I opened and found a pocket-watch inside. The watch itself was immaculate, a large, weighty round thing with a beautiful crystal casing wrapped in a bezel of filigreed gold and a long rope chain and clasp. Not a thing of great use to me, but a thing of excellent beauty. I looked inside both boxes for a card, but came up only with a thin piece of paper with spidery ink lettering aged beyond legibility. WILMINGTON was my mother's maiden name. Intriguing. Aunt Sheila must have found this on an online estate sale. It was clear from its heft and smooth, intricate motion that it was an incredibly valuable watch.

Someone must know I was trying to do research on that side of our family. Most of the records were obscured if not obliterated. The Wilmington side of the family had been whiskey smugglers during Prohibition and what little we knew about the family before that time period is virtually nonexistent because Great Aunt Irma went to great pains to erase their trail. We knew they were Canadians by way of Britain, but everything beyond that was a blur.

The watch kept excellent time, even kept pace with satellite time on my cell phone. I was at another dead end, it seemed, so I wound the watch, put it in my pocket, and let its gentle ticking stand as just another thread in the web of my mother's ancestry.