I told Greg to come to the house. He arrived within the hour, pale and sweating, and I read him the rest of the letter. Dad had saved a stranded train full of passengers during a blizzard and refused any reward but that watch. The company had given him one more thing, a retirement bonus in company stock he never touched. Dad wrote that the real watch and the stock were for the child who stayed.

The stock had grown to about two hundred thousand dollars. Dad also wrote that Greg was not to be cut off, because a father never stops loving a son. He left Greg the copy, and a letter of his own. Greg opened it with trembling hands and read in silence. Tears ran down his face. He admitted he had taken the watch because he felt like a stranger at the funeral and wanted something of Dad’s.

Dad’s letter to Greg said he forgave him for the distance, and that the copy was a test he hoped Greg would fail only once. Greg stayed until midnight, apologizing again and again. I told him I was angry, but I also wanted my brother back. He offered to return the copy, and I said to keep it, since Dad had wanted him to have something.

Greg flew home, and we began calling each other every Sunday. He visited at Christmas, and he drove with me to place the real watch beside Dad’s headstone one morning, wound and ticking. I used part of the stock to fund a dialysis patient transport fund in Dad’s name. Greg wears the copy on his wrist, and he winds it every morning, before his coffee.