Winter nipped at the town, frosting the workshop windows overnight. Ethan had hung a string of paper snowflakes above the register ("Hand-cut! By me!"), though one was lopsided enough to look like a confused star. Ella was testing a cuckoo clock's chime—"Too shrill," she muttered, tweaking a lever—when the bell jangled, sharp against the quiet.
A woman in her fifties stepped in, her coat buttoned to the chin, a small velvet box clutched in her gloved hand. She didn't smile. Just set the box on the counter, pushed it toward Ella, and said, "Fix it. Or don't. I don't care."
Her tone was brittle, but her fingers hovered over the box, like she might snatch it back. Ella opened it: a silver pocket watch, its lid engraved with two initials—L & M—twisted together. The glass was cracked, and when Ella flipped it open, the hands were stuck at 3:10, a faint crease in the metal where it looked like it had been squeezed too tight.
"Tough case," Ella said, keeping her voice calm. "What's its story?"
The woman—Linda, she said, after a pause—crossed her arms. "It was mine. And Martha's. We were friends. Once. For 30 years." She nodded at the initials. "L for Linda. M for Martha. She gave it to me, 20 years ago. Said 'time shouldn't come between us.' Joke, right?"
Sebastian appeared with a mug of tea, setting it down without a word. Linda didn't touch it.
"Martha died last month," she said, staring at the watch. "Cancer. Fast. We hadn't spoken in two years. Not since…." She trailed off, jaw tight.
Ella ran a finger over the crease. "You squeezed it. Hard. That's why the hands stuck."
Linda's nostrils flared. "She said I was 'too busy' for her. Her kid was getting married, and I missed the rehearsal dinner. Work. A stupid meeting. She called, yelling. I yelled back. Said 'you're being dramatic.' She hung up. That was it. Two years. No calls. No texts. Then her daughter shows up at my door, says 'Mom wanted you to have this.'"
She tapped the watch. "Said it stopped at 3:10 p.m.—the time I hung up on her."
Ella pried open the watch's back, careful not to jostle the gears. A tiny piece of paper fluttered out, folded into a square.
Linda stiffened. "What's that?"
Ella unfolded it. The handwriting was shaky, like the writer's hands trembled. "Linda— rehearsal dinner was nice, but it's not the same without you. I'm sorry I yelled. I'm scared. The doctors say it's bad. Come see me? Please. I miss my friend. —M"
The date was three weeks before Martha died.
Linda's breath hitched. She reached for the note, her fingers trembling, and when she read it, her shoulders slumped, like a weight had dropped. "I never got this. She never sent it."
"Maybe she couldn't," Ella said softly. "Scared you'd say no. Scared of breaking again."
Linda's voice cracked. "I would've gone. God, I would've dropped everything. But I was… stubborn. Angry. Like a kid, holding a grudge." She wiped her cheek, hard, like she was angry at the tears. "Fix the watch. Please. Even if it's just… I don't know. A 'what if.'"
Ella nodded, setting to work. She straightened the bent hands, replaced the cracked glass, and gently oiled the gears, which had seized from being unused. Linda watched, silent, as the watch slowly came apart—and back together.
"Martha loved old things," Linda said, after a while. "Used to drag me to flea markets. 'History in a pocket,' she'd say. This watch? She found it in a bin, rusted, and fixed it herself. Said 'see? Even broken things can be worth saving.'"
Ella smiled, closing the watch's back. "Sounds like she was trying to tell you something."
Linda didn't answer. Just held out her hand.
Ella placed the watch in it. Linda wound it, her thumb brushing the L & M engraving, and the gears turned with a soft click. The hands stirred, inching past 3:10, 3:11…
When it hit 3:15, it chimed—a clear, sweet note, like a sigh.
Linda closed her eyes. "That's the chime. She added it. 'For when we need a reminder,' she said. 'That time's short.'"
She opened her eyes, handing the watch back to Ella. "Keep it. I can't… I don't need it. But someone should. Someone who gets it."
Ella shook her head, pressing it into Linda's palm. "It's yours. To keep. Or to give to her daughter. But it's yours. Martha wanted you to have it."
Linda hesitated, then slipped it into her coat pocket. "Thanks. For… showing me."
She left, and Ella watched her pause on the sidewalk, opening the watch, staring at the hands as they moved.
Sebastian stood beside her, his shoulder brushing hers. "Tough to fix a grudge. Tougher than gears."
Ella nodded, flipping to a new page in the ledger. The cuckoo clock chirped, off-key but earnest, and Ethan burst in, holding a tray of cookies. "Mrs. Higgins made 'peace cookies'! Said 'even friends fight, but good ones make up.'"
Linda was still on the sidewalk, talking to a woman—Martha's daughter, Ella guessed, from the resemblance. They hugged, and Linda pulled something from her pocket—the watch—and pressed it into the girl's hand.
Ella picked up her pen, the winter light slanting through the window, gilding the page.
"Pocket watch, Linda & Martha. Stopped at the moment a friendship broke. Chimed again when an unsent letter said 'I'm sorry.' Some wounds don't heal with time. But they heal with remembering—how to forgive, how to miss, how to say 'I should've tried.'"
She set down the pen, and outside, Linda and Martha's daughter walked away, side by side, the watch glinting in Linda's hand.
Conflict, Ella thought, wasn't always about shouting. Sometimes it was about the quiet, stubborn things—pride, fear, the words we leave unsaid. But just like a stuck gear, a broken friendship could be pried loose. Gently. Carefully. With a little willingness to say, "I was wrong."
Inside, the workshop hummed—with cuckoos, with cookies, with the soft tick of a watch that had found its rhythm again.
Time kept moving. And so, slowly, did the healing.