I was seventeen years old, a child raising a child, the first time I pushed open the heavy door of Sam’s Pawn Shop. The bell jingled, a cheerful sound that felt entirely out of place with the knot of desperation tightening in my stomach. I was clutching my infant son, Elijah, to my chest with one arm, while my other hand gripped the only piece of my father I had left: his stainless steel watch.
My dad had died when I was eleven in a car accident that cleaved my life into a stark “before” and “after.” The watch was my talisman. It was heavy, scratched on the face, and if I concentrated hard enough, I swore it still held the faint, spicy scent of his cologne. On nights when the silence of the apartment was too loud, I would fall asleep holding it, imagining the rhythmic tick was his heartbeat.
But sentimentality doesn’t pay the electric bill. By seventeen, I was living in a cramped apartment that smelled perpetually of damp carpet and formula, scraping by on a part-time grocery clerk’s wage. That morning, I had counted exactly three diapers left in the pack. A red final notice for the utilities was taped to my door like a scarlet letter. My bank account was overdrawn. So, I made the choice that felt like tearing off a limb. I stared at the watch, whispered an apology to a ghost, and drove to Sam’s.
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