The Clockmaker's Daughter

by Kate Morton

Her voice was like a bell, pure and unsullied, and he wanted to run over and take her by the shoulders and warn her, to tell her that life could be brutal, that it could be relentless and cold and wearying. He wanted to tell her that it was all meaningless, that good people died too young, for no good reason, and that the world was filled with people who would seek to do her harm, and that there was no way of telling what was around the corner or even if there was any corner ahead at all. And yet— As he looked at her, and she looked at the house, something in the way the leaves of the maple caught the sun and illuminated the woman beneath it made his heart ache and expand, and he realized that he wanted to tell her, too, that by some strange twist it was the very meaningless of life that made it all so beautiful and rare and wonderful. That for all its savagery—because of its savagery—war had brightened every color. That without the darkness one would never notice the stars. All of this he wanted to say, but the words caught in his throat, and instead he lifted his hand to wave, a silly gesture that she didn’t see, because by now she’d looked away.