Chapter 244: The name he kept

Adrian remained standing in the doorway.

His father’s words lingered between them.

Elias was the first person who taught me how to keep it.

He looked down at the wooden box in his hands.

Then at the older man sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Can you explain that?"

His father smiled faintly.

"I suppose I should."

"Please do."

"Before your mother gave me a name, I didn’t have one. I had existed for a long time, but existence and identity aren’t necessarily the same thing."

Adrian pulled out the chair beside the bed.

"I know."

His father nodded.

"Of course you do. You’ve experienced something similar."

He paused.

"When you first called me Father, I didn’t understand what you meant. I knew what the word represented, but I didn’t understand why you had chosen it for me."

"Because you answered me."

"Yes."

His father looked down at his hands.

"I had spent so long observing things that I had forgotten what it meant to participate in them. You gave me a place in your life without asking whether I deserved it."

Adrian smiled slightly.

"That’s a rather generous interpretation."

"Perhaps."

His father chuckled.

"But it was the first time someone had given me something without expecting anything in return."

Adrian glanced toward the watch.

"And Elias?"

"After you gave me that name, I met him."

"What did he do?"

"He taught me that keeping something was different from possessing it."

His father looked toward the window.

"Elias was an ordinary man. He had no extraordinary abilities, no special authority, and no understanding of the things you and I have discussed. He simply knew how to care about people."

He smiled.

"He was also incredibly stubborn."

"Sounds familiar."

"Very."

---

His father told him about the first time they met.

It had happened in a small town near the coast.

Elias had been running a repair shop, fixing clocks, watches, and occasionally radios. His business wasn’t particularly successful, but he never seemed worried about money.

He preferred repairing things that other people considered beyond saving.

One afternoon, his father had entered the shop carrying a broken pocket watch.

Elias had examined it for several minutes before looking up.

"Where did you get this?"

"I found it."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the only one I have."

Elias had sighed.

"Well, whatever its history, the mechanism is damaged."

"Can you repair it?"

"Probably."

"How long?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"Whether you stop asking questions while I’m working."

His father had apparently found the exchange amusing.

He returned the following day.

And the day after that.

Eventually, Elias stopped asking why.

He simply started preparing two cups of tea whenever the older man arrived.

"That’s how it began," his father said.

"An ordinary repair shop?"

"An ordinary conversation."

Adrian smiled.

"What happened to the watch?"

"It was repaired."

"Then why did you keep it?"

His father shook his head.

"That wasn’t the watch I gave away."

Adrian frowned.

"Wait. What?"

"The pocket watch belonged to me. The silver one was Elias’s."

Adrian looked down at the wooden box.

His father continued.

"He gave it to me shortly before he died. He said I should keep it until I met someone who needed it."

"And that someone was the man in the photograph."

"Yes."

Adrian rubbed his forehead.

"Then why does the watch have my name?"

His father didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he reached for the box.

He turned the watch over and examined the inscription.

"Because someone changed it."

"Who?"

"I don’t know."

Adrian stared at him.

"You really don’t know?"

"No."

His father returned the watch to the box.

"But I suspect the person who changed it wanted you to find it."

---

The next morning, Adrian called Jonas.

He explained what his father had told him, including the story of Elias and the watch.

Jonas listened without interrupting.

When Adrian finished, he remained quiet for a moment.

"So the man in the shop was waiting for you?"

"Apparently."

"And he knew about the watch?"

"Yes."

Jonas sighed.

"I really wish I hadn’t gone into that shop."

Adrian laughed.

"That’s a little late."

"I’m serious."

"I know."

Jonas paused.

"There’s something else."

Adrian leaned against the kitchen counter.

"What now?"

"I helped my brother move yesterday."

"How did it go?"

"Better than I expected."

"That’s good."

"He found a small apartment. Nothing fancy, but it’s close to his new workplace."

Adrian smiled.

"Sounds like he’s doing well."

"Yeah."

Jonas hesitated.

"He asked me to keep his spare key."

"Why?"

"He said he wanted me to visit whenever I wanted."

Adrian listened.

"I think I finally understood something."

"What?"

"My brother wasn’t trying to get rid of me. He just wanted to live somewhere he could call his own."

Adrian nodded, even though Jonas couldn’t see him.

"That’s an important difference."

"Yeah."

Jonas laughed quietly.

"I spent so long thinking that if I stopped holding on, I’d lose him."

"And now?"

"Now I think I was making it harder for him to stay."

Adrian smiled.

"You’re learning."

"Don’t sound so proud."

"Sorry."

There was a brief pause.

Then Jonas asked, "Are you going back to the shop?"

"Probably."

"Let me know when."

"Why?"

"I want to see it again."

Adrian considered that.

"All right. But we’re not going inside without knowing what we’re dealing with."

Jonas laughed.

"You’re no fun."

"I’m alive."

"Fair enough."

---

Later that afternoon, Clara sent Adrian a message.

Clara: I found something else in my mother’s notebook.

He replied immediately.

Adrian: What is it?

A photograph arrived.

It showed a page from Margaret’s notebook.

The handwriting was familiar.

He came again today.

This time he brought a watch.

He asked whether I remembered the man who had visited before the shop opened.

I told him I remembered.

He said that was enough.

Beneath the entry was another sentence.

I asked him whether he was the same person.

He said no.

Adrian stared at the final line.

He typed.

Adrian: Did your mother write anything else?

Clara replied.

Clara: Yes. There’s another entry on the next page.

A second photograph arrived.

He told me that names are strange things.

Some are given.

Some are chosen.

Others are remembered.

He said that the first name is rarely the one people keep.

Adrian read the words twice.

Then he looked toward the wooden box.

The watch.

His father’s name.

His own name.

Elias.

Everything seemed to circle around the same question.

Who had given whom their first identity?

He sent Clara a message thanking her.

Then he placed the phone down.

---

That evening, Lena found Adrian sitting at the dining table with several photographs spread around him.

"Research?"

"Something like that."

She picked up one of the pages.

"Margaret again?"

He nodded.

Lena read the entry before putting it down.

"She was a very observant woman."

"She remembered things most people overlooked."

"Maybe that’s why she kept those notebooks."

Adrian looked at her.

"Do you think remembering someone is a responsibility?"

Lena considered the question.

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"Remembering someone doesn’t mean you have to carry everything about them. But if they trusted you with something important, I think there’s value in keeping it safe."

Adrian nodded.

She sat beside him.

"Why?"

"I’ve been thinking about my father."

"Something he said?"

"He told me I gave him his first name."

Lena smiled.

"Father?"

"Yes."

"That’s sweet."

"He said Elias taught him how to keep it."

Lena looked at the photographs.

"Maybe that’s what all of this is about."

"What?"

"Names. Not just the words themselves, but what people choose to do with them."

Adrian looked at her.

She shrugged.

"Your father chose to keep the name you gave him. Margaret kept the names of her customers. Clara is trying to remember her mother through the people who knew her."

Lena leaned against his shoulder.

"Maybe the man in the photograph is looking for something similar."

Adrian remained quiet.

It was a simple explanation.

Perhaps too simple.

But it made more sense than most of the theories he had considered.

---

That night, Adrian dreamed about the repair shop.

He stood outside its entrance.

The sign was old and faded.

A small bell hung above the door.

He pushed it open.

The sound echoed through the empty shop.

Behind the counter stood Elias.

He looked exactly as he had in the portrait.

Young.

Calm.

With a fountain pen tucked into his shirt pocket.

He looked up.

"You’re late."

Adrian stared at him.

"Have we met?"

Elias smiled.

"Not properly."

He placed a watch on the counter.

It was the silver one.

The one in the wooden box.

Adrian approached.

"Is this yours?"

"It was."

"Then why did you give it away?"

"Because I didn’t need it anymore."

"Why?"

Elias looked at him.

"Because I had already learned what I needed to."

Adrian frowned.

"What was that?"

"That time doesn’t belong to the person holding the watch."

He tapped the glass.

"It belongs to the people who spend it."

Adrian looked down.

The watch had started ticking.

For the first time.

"Who changed the inscription?"

Elias smiled faintly.

"Someone who wanted you to remember."

"Who?"

The older man looked toward the back of the shop.

"Ask the person who gave me the watch."

Adrian turned.

There was someone standing in the doorway.

A familiar figure.

His own face.

The man from the photograph.

Adrian spun back toward Elias.

But the counter was empty.

The watch was gone.

Only a small piece of paper remained.

On it, written in careful handwriting, were three words.

You gave it.

---

Adrian woke before sunrise.

Lena was still asleep.

He sat up slowly and looked toward the bedside table.

His phone was there.

The wooden box was downstairs.

He remembered the dream clearly.

More clearly than he wanted to.

He went to the living room and opened the box.

The watch remained inside.

Its hands were still.

He turned it over.

The inscription hadn’t changed.

For the one who arrives after the beginning.

But beneath it, near the edge of the metal casing, he noticed a tiny mark.

A symbol.

A circle with a short line through its centre.

He recognized it.

It was the same symbol carved into the original notebook.

Adrian carefully closed the box.

His phone vibrated.

An unknown number.

You finally saw it.

Another message followed.

The watch was never meant to measure time.

Adrian typed a reply.

Adrian: Then what was it meant to measure?

The answer arrived almost immediately.

The distance between a name and the person who carries it.

He stared at the screen.

Then another message appeared.

You gave Elias the watch.

He gave it to your father.

Your father gave it to me.

Adrian’s fingers tightened around the phone.

Adrian: Who are you?

The reply took longer this time.

The first person who wore your face.

Adrian stopped breathing.

Before he could type another question, a final message arrived.

And I think it’s time you remembered what you called me.

The phone went dark.

Adrian looked at the watch.

Then at the empty space beside him.

For the first time, he wondered whether the man in the photograph had been waiting for him to remember a name.

Not his own.

Someone else’s.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, a forgotten voice seemed to whisper a single word.

A name he almost recognized.

But couldn’t quite remember.