The boy hesitated.

“Anna.”

The jeweler’s hand tightened around the counter.

For eighteen years, he had not allowed himself to say that name out loud.

Anna.

His daughter.

The girl who left after one terrible argument and never came home.

The boy looked scared.

“Do you know her?”

The old man covered his mouth, but the sob escaped anyway.

“I’m her father.”

The boy’s eyes widened.

“My grandpa?”

The jeweler nodded, tears falling now.

“Where is she?”

The boy looked down.

“In our room above the laundromat. She’s been coughing blood. She told me not to bother anyone, but we ran out of medicine.”

The old man closed the watch carefully, like it was a heartbeat.

“Why didn’t she come to me?”

The boy pulled a folded letter from his pocket.

“She tried.”

The jeweler opened it with shaking hands.

The letter was old, never delivered.

Dad, I’m pregnant. I’m scared. I want to come home.

His face collapsed.

“My wife told me she never wrote.”

The boy whispered, “Mom said Grandma sent her away.”

The shop went silent.

Eighteen years of anger turned into something worse.

Regret.

The jeweler walked around the counter and knelt in front of the boy.

“What is your name?”

“Leo.”

The old man started crying harder.

That had been his father’s name.

He placed the watch back into Leo’s hand.

“We’re not selling this.”

“But Mom needs medicine.”

The jeweler reached for his coat.

“No,” he said softly. “Your mother needs her father.”

Then he took the boy’s hand and hurried toward the door, leaving the jewelry cases glowing behind him.

For the first time in eighteen years, the watch wasn’t measuring lost time anymore.

It was leading him back to the daughter he should have never let go.