Early autumn painted the town in burnt oranges and deep reds. The maple tree outside the workshop shed leaves like confetti, and the air smelled of cinnamon—Ethan's mom had dropped off a batch of apple cider donuts, which were already half-gone (Ethan claimed "the cat stole two," but the crumbs on his shirt told a different story).
Ella was calibrating a vintage wristwatch when the bell jangled. A woman in her late twenties stepped in, clutching a small, beat-up alarm clock—its plastic casing scuffed, its bell bent, a sticker of a cartoon rocket peeling from the side. She hovered by the door, like she might bolt, before finally approaching the counter.
"Hi," she said, her voice thin. "I'm Clara. My brother said you… fix things that matter. This clock… it matters. Even if it looks like junk."
Ella smiled, gesturing to a stool. "Junk's just a story no one's listened to yet. Let's hear its."
Clara set the clock down. It was a classic wind-up model, the kind with a loud, shrill bell. The hands were stuck at 6:15 a.m.
"It was my dad's," she said, running a finger over the rocket sticker. "He gave it to me when I started first grade. Said 'no more sleeping through the bus, squirt.' I hated it—too loud, too early. But he'd wind it every night, without fail. Even when he worked double shifts at the factory. Even when his hands shook from the arthritis."
Her throat tightened. "He died six months ago. Heart attack, at work. The clock stopped that morning. At 6:15—exactly when he'd usually yell 'Clara, bus in five!' from the kitchen."
Ella turned the clock over, prying off the back panel. The gears were caked with dust, but one was noticeably bent—like it had been forced to stop. "This wasn't an accident. Someone jammed it."
Clara flinched. "That was me. The day after he died. I couldn't stand the silence, but I couldn't stand the thought of it ticking without him, either. Stupid, right? Breaking a clock because it hurt too much to let it breathe."
Sebastian appeared with two mugs of cider, setting one in front of Clara. "Hurt makes us do messy things. My grandma used to say 'grief's just love with nowhere to go.'"
Clara sipped, her fingers wrapping around the mug. "He never talked much, my dad. Worked odd hours, came home quiet, fixed stuff around the house without being asked. The sink, the fence, this clock—once, when I was 12, I took it apart 'to see how it worked' and broke three gears. I cried, said I'd ruined it. He just said 'we'll fix it together' and stayed up till midnight gluing the pieces back. Never mentioned it again."
She pulled a crumpled photo from her pocket: a younger Clara, toothless and grinning, holding the alarm clock up to a man with calloused hands and a soft smile. "That's the day he gave it to me. First grade. I thought the rocket sticker was 'babyish.' Now I'd kill to have it."
Ella carefully straightened the bent gear, her touch light as she brushed away dust. "Your dad kept a lot of things quiet, huh? The late nights fixing the clock. The way he never got mad when you broke it. Love doesn't always need words."
Clara nodded, wiping her cheek. "I found his toolbox last week. Under his bed. There was a note in it—'For Clara, when she's ready to fix things on her own.' And… a new rocket sticker. Still in the package."
Ella smiled, reaching for a tube of adhesive. "Let's give it a fresh start. Both of us."
She worked slowly, replacing a worn spring, oiling the gears until they moved smooth as silk. Clara watched, her eyes softening as the clock's inner workings came to life again.
"Ready?" Ella said, closing the back panel.
Clara nodded, her hand trembling as she wound the key. The gears turned with a familiar whir, and the hands jolted—then started moving, steady and sure, past 6:15, 6:16…
At 7:00, the bell rang—loud, clear, obnoxiously cheerful, just like Clara remembered.
She laughed, a wet, shaky sound. "That's it. That's… him. Yelling at me to get up. God, I missed that noise."
Ella pulled out the new rocket sticker from her workbench—Clara had slipped it to her earlier—and pressed it gently over the peeling old one. "Good as new. Almost."
"Better," Clara said, hugging the clock to her chest. "Thank you. For letting him yell at me one more time."
She left, the clock's faint tick-tick fading down the street. Ella watched her go, then turned to Sebastian, who was already flipping open the ledger.
"Your turn," he said.
Ella picked up a pen, the autumn light gilding the page.
"Alarm clock, Clara & her dad. Stopped when silence felt safer than grief. Chimed again when a rocket sticker and a late-night note said what words never could. Some love is loud. Some is just… steady. Both count."
She closed the ledger, and outside, a leaf fluttered down, landing on the windowsill. Ethan burst in, his mouth full of donut. "Clara just texted! She's gonna fix the fence at her dad's old house—said 'he'd laugh if he saw me hammering crooked nails.'"
Ella smiled, glancing at the clock on the wall. It ticked on, unhurried, unbroken.
Some stories, she thought, don't end when the people do. They just turn into something quieter—something that ticks in your bones, that rings in the sound of a familiar bell, that sticks around, waiting to be mended.
And in the warm, cinnamon-scented quiet of the workshop, that was more than enough.