“What are you doing?” he whispered.
I didn’t answer. But I didn’t want anybody to get hurt. I knew I was absolutely capable of accidentally firing off a shot. I could tell you a story about a nail gun, but I wouldn’t have time.
Rosemary said, “He just learned his wife hired a hit man to kill him. She’s in custody, as is the hit man, but he’s distraught . . . Yes . . . yes . . .”
I mouthed thank you to Rosemary, happy that she didn’t go with the version of the story that included Constant.
“Abbott, am I crazy?” I asked. “You’re an expert. Tell me, am I crazy? Am I?”
“I don’t know,” he said very softly. “You’re probably having some type of nervous breakdown. That would be my guess. But I don’t really know.”
I looked at the watch again. Then I felt something else in my pocket. I pulled out the little book Constant had given me and held it up for Abbott to see. “Do you see this book?”
He nodded.
“Really? For real?”
“Yes, I see it.”
I took a deep breath. That wasn’t actually what I wanted to hear. There was a twinge of hope that maybe I really had lost my mind and that I wasn’t going to die. Even though I didn’t have much to live for, I had enough. I sat there amazed at the human will. My will.
Rosemary’s phone conversation seemed distant as I opened the book, read the terms listed on each page. My gaze stopped on crown: “the knob attached to the top of the winding stem.” It was the thing that gave life to the whole watch, that caused all the gears to run. I turned the page and my eyes rested on the word escapement.
But then Rosemary interrupted me. “Mattie?”
I looked at her.
“They want to know if you will come out and surrender.”
“Tell them you’ll call them back.”
“They want me to stay on the line.”
“Get the number and we’ll call them back.”
Rosemary nodded, wrote something down on a pad in the kitchen, and then hung up the phone. “There are a lot of guys out there,” she said, coming back into the room. “And the SWAT team. They said they have the house surrounded.”
“Perfect.”
She knelt beside me. “Mattie, I think you should give yourself up.”
“I’m thinking of letting time pass here, see if I drop dead. That would be easier on everyone, wouldn’t it?”
“But it’s not the right thing to do. You got a lot of guys out there who are waiting. Worried. Unsure what you’re going to do.”
“You sound like the hostage negotiator now.”
“Well, I am a hostage. And I am trying to negotiate with you. But I think you can trust me now, can’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“What are you holding in your hand?” she asked.
“You can see it too?”
“It looks like a small book.” She leaned in. “About watches.”
“Constant gave it to me, said it might be helpful.”
She studied it for a moment. “Has it been?”
I looked down to read the definition of escapement. “‘Left to its own devices,’” I read aloud, “‘the mainspring of a watch would wind down in a matter of seconds. The escapement is the part of the watch mechanism that keeps this from happening, forcing the mainspring to instead unwind at a slow, regular pace. The regular interaction of the various parts of the escapement is what literally makes a watch tick.’”
Tears formed in Rosemary’s eyes. Mine too. Abbott’s looked glassy as well, from where I sat.
I set the book down next to the gun and grabbed Rosemary’s hand, harder than I should’ve, but she had strong hands. “There has been someone who has given me the chance to tick my whole life, since the day I was born. And most of the time, I didn’t even care to acknowledge him.”
“It’s not too late to care,” Rosemary said, swiping at her own tears. “It’s not too late. You still have time.”
I opened my hand to see the pocket watch. Four minutes and twenty-one seconds left. The ticking grew louder in my ear, filled it to its capacity.
The phone rang, causing us all to jump again.
“Didn’t you tell them we would call back?”
“I think they’re nervous. They’re not sure what’s going on in here.” Rosemary patted my hand. “Those aren’t the bad guys out there. Remember that.”
After a minute, the phone stopped ringing.
Abbott seemed to have sat up a bit. “What are you going to do, Mattie?”
I stood. “Rosemary, will you track down Beth? Will you still tell her that I love her? And tell her I forgive her?”
Rosemary smiled through the tears. “Of course I will.” She put her arms around me and squeezed me like a ketchup packet. “I’m so glad we got to meet.”
“Me too. Rosemary, you were truly a Godsend.”
I let go of her and walked to Abbott. Behind him the police lights flashed through the edges of the window, their strobes hurting my eyes. I figured they could see my looming shadow against the curtains. I imagined that they were at this very moment trying to decide if they should rush the house.
I held out my hand for Abbott to shake. “Good-bye, Abbott.”
“Good-bye, Matthew.” He slid his hairless hand into mine. It was ice-cold, like I’d just pulled a fish out of the icebox.
“I’m sorry for this journey you’re having to make,” I said.
“I’m sorry for being part of the journey you had to find your way through.” He squeezed my hand as tightly as a man in his condition could and offered a feeble smile. “I’ll probably be seeing you real soon.”
Tears dropped down my face again. “You think so?”
“If I’m lucky.”
I handed him the watch. He clasped it in his hand. We nodded to one another, the way only two men whose deaths were imminent could. Then I picked up the gun and looked to the door.
Rosemary came alongside me. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to surrender.”
She squeezed my arm with approval. “You’ll need to give me the gun. If you walk out there with the gun, all kinds of bad things could happen to you.”
I looked down at her. “I’m going to surrender. I’m going to let what is to be, be. I am going to take this gun, and if they all start firing at me, then that is the way I was supposed to go. If they don’t, and they come and arrest me, then that is what’s supposed to happen. I am surrendering to whatever he—” I nodded to the ceiling—“wants.”
Rosemary didn’t look satisfied. “I think you should give me the gun.”
“Rosemary, you have done all you can. You’ve been one of the kindest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. But it is time for you to go sit down. And you don’t get up. Don’t get up, until the police come inside this home and get you. Do you understand me?”
For the first time since I’d known her, those bossy eyes relented. She blinked slowly at me, backed away, and sat down in the chair I usually sat in.
I turned and slowly walked to the front door. I stared at the ornate handle—too fancy, it seemed, for the kind of wood that it attached to. My whole body trembled. I felt myself sweating and my breath was caught in my throat. Though I no longer held the pocket watch, the ticking thumped in my ear methodically. I guessed I had a minute or so left.
And then I heard a voice in my ear, quieter than the ticking but strong and forceful, like wind. Mighty, like thunder. “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
I smiled. Grinned. I couldn’t help it. Eat. He knew me so well.
With one swift motion, I grabbed the handle and opened the door just a little at a time. The bright strobe lights lit up the sky as if there were some kind of fireworks show going on. A spotlight shone against the door, meant to blind me. It worked.
I kind of regrette
d taking the gun, but it was like my hand wouldn’t drop it. Instinctively, I stepped forward and shot my hands in the air. I stood right in the doorframe, my arms straight up like I was on a roller coaster. The gun was in my hand but at least it wasn’t pointed at anything but the moon.
“Matthew Bigham?”
I nodded. I could see movement but couldn’t really see anybody. They were all in black, I guessed. It didn’t look like I was going to go out in a blaze of glory.
“Matthew, I need you to toss that gun this way, okay?”
I nodded. I was never much good at tossing anything, especially salad, so I just dropped it. It landed a couple of feet in front of me. I could hear the exasperated sighs of all the athletic dudes behind the light.
“Sorry,” I said. I think I said it. I was having a hard time breathing. A real hard time breathing. My chest hurt as it always did in stressful situations, like it had a thousand times before.
“Matthew,” the voice said. “I need you to take a few steps forward, very slowly, with your hands raised.”
I lifted my foot to do that very thing, but my leg wouldn’t budge. In fact, nothing was budging. My arms, lifted straight into the air, were stuck, wedged between the doorframe. So was my body. My hips. I was totally, 100 percent, stuck. In all the excitement, I completely forgot that I hadn’t made it through a doorway without turning sideways in two years.
I was about to shout that I was stuck, but I realized I couldn’t. My chest felt like it was being crushed and my lungs did not have any air in them. I lifted my gaze upward, into the darkening sky.
You have to be the picture of innocence. And sometimes innocence looks real messy.
I stared right into the bright, white light that began to move toward me.
Heart attack.
I knew it.
A Note from the Author
Mattie Bigham has been a part of me for a long time. I am not sure when he actually “took shape,” but his voice has culminated over the years into this living, breathing character whom I adore. When the 7 Hours opportunity arrived, I knew this was Mattie’s time to shine.
Through disappointment and struggles and life not turning out quite right, Mattie expresses what hardship can do to a person and how the soul longs for an answer. We live in an angry world. I can feel the oppressive and collective angst of a society no longer able to tolerate empty souls.
Life brings us all to our knees one way or another. And death creeps closer every day for each of us. I hope, like Mattie, you will find that time is a gift, that life has purpose, and that you are loved by your Creator.
About the Author
Rene Gutteridge is the author of eighteen novels, including Heart of the Country (with John Ward), Possession, Listen, and the Storm series (Tyndale House Publishers) and Never the Bride, the Boo series, and the Occupational Hazards series from WaterBrook Press. She also released My Life as a Doormat and The Ultimate Gift: The Novelization with Thomas Nelson. Rene is also known for her Christian comedy sketches. She studied screenwriting while earning a mass communications degree, graduating magna cum laude from Oklahoma City University and earning the Excellence in Mass Communication award. She served as the full-time director of drama for First United Methodist Church for five years before leaving to stay home and write. She enjoys instructing at writers conferences and in college classrooms. She lives with her husband, Sean, a musician, and their children in Oklahoma City. Visit her website at www.renegutteridge.com.
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