by Carolyn Bond
He knew this gold watch from the delicate floral etching. It was the one around Lily’s neck the night she’d come to dinner at his house. A woman in Frankfort was wearing it and he couldn’t look away from it. He wondered how she had gotten it. Maybe it had been sold to an antique dealer. What he didn’t know was that the watch had been Bettie’s and the woman wearing it was Bettie’s great-great-granddaughter.
In a rush of anger at how his life turned out, he shoved the woman down, took the watch, and ran. He shoved it in his pocket and jumped into the back of a Wild Turkey Bourbon truck just before the door slammed shut. When the truck reached the distillery on the Lawrenceburg side of the bridge and the door was opened, he made a run for it. The truck driver and a security guard gave pursuit. Darting here and there, he found his way to the bridge and started heading across. He could hear sirens in the distance.
That’s where pathetic confusion happened. He got to the middle and started sobbing with the rush of adrenaline. Where was he going to go? What difference did it make? This watch and memory of what could have been were all he had of Lily. He was never going to be the aristocrat he was born to be. He shoved his hand in his pocket and felt the watch vibrating a warm radiating heat. He closed his eyes and begged God to release him from his terrible life where no time was his.
The light flashed around him and the distillery disappeared. The bridge seemed brand new. For just a moment, he thought maybe God had answered his prayer for escape, but the deeds of our lives eventually catch up to us. For Brian Everbright, a slow, agonizing, lonely death was his future. He shivered in the cool mist wafting up from the river. Shock was setting in. He pulled the chain around his neck and closed his eyes.
A note from the author: I hope you enjoyed this story. Please leave a review on Amazon and let me and other readers know what you thought of it. You can follow my blog at www.carolynbondwriter.com. I would love to hear from you.
