I was pouring coffee when I decided to let my brother take Dad’s watch from the coffin. I knew Dad had left the ownership papers in a box for me. I knew Rick would try to sell it. I could’ve stopped him, and I didn’t.

I know that sounds bad. It was bad. I’ve got reasons for it, but reasons aren’t the same as being right.

Dad’s watch was gold, or mostly gold, anyway. The railroad gave it to him when he retired after twenty-five years.

The back had his name and the dates engraved on it. He wore it for forty years, winding it at the kitchen table before his first cup of coffee.

“A man ought to keep track of time,” he used to say.

I lived fifteen minutes away from him in a county-seat town in the Missouri Ozarks. Rick lived in Phoenix. For the last four years of Dad’s life, I drove him to dialysis three times a week. I learned the oxygen machine, sorted his pills, and trimmed his toenails because he couldn’t reach them anymore. Rick called on Christmas and Dad’s birthday. Usually.

I’m not saying I did all that without keeping score. I did. I wanted Rick to notice. I wanted Dad to say I’d done more. I hate admitting that, but there it is.

Three months before Dad died, he asked me to get a small fireproof box from his closet. He told me not to open it.

“There’s something in there you’ll need after I’m gone,” he said. “It’s meant for you, not Rick.”

I asked what it was. He said I’d understand when the time came.

I should’ve asked more. I didn’t. Dad had always been the kind of man who said something once and expected the rest of us to live with it.

His last clear wish about the watch was that he be buried wearing it. He’d said so to both of us more than once. Rick heard him say it. I know because Rick was there the last time, sitting at Dad’s kitchen table, turning his phone face down whenever it buzzed.

That was why I didn’t think the watch would become an issue. I thought Dad would be buried with it, and that would be that.

Rick flew in the night before the funeral. He rented a Lexus at the airport, which I only know because he told me twice.

He was wearing a dark suit that didn’t fit right in the shoulders. I remember the little white tag still stitched to one sleeve. I could’ve said something. I didn’t.

At the visitation, I stood by the open casket and greeted people. My aunt Joyce brought a tin of lemon cookies because she always brought them when she didn’t know what else to do. The funeral home smelled like coffee and flowers. I was tired enough that the edges of everything looked fuzzy.

Rick stood beside Dad for a long time. I assumed he was having a private moment. I gave him space.

Then he reached into the coffin and opened the watch clasp.

I saw the thin strip of lighter skin on Dad’s wrist where the band had been. I remember that little mark better than I remember what I was wearing.

“Rick,” I said. “Dad wanted that buried with him.”

He slipped the watch into his jacket pocket.

“Dad would want it with the son who mattered,” he said.

Aunt Joyce made a small sound. The funeral director started toward us and stopped. My husband, Paul, put his hand on my back.

“Are you going to say anything?” he whispered.

I could’ve. I could’ve told Rick to put it back. I could’ve called the funeral director over and made him hand it back. Instead, I looked at my brother’s pocket and said, “All right, Rick.”

He tapped the pocket with two fingers, like he’d won something.

I’m not proud of the way that felt.

I wasn’t just tired or trying to keep the funeral peaceful. I knew about the papers. I’d opened the box the night before. Dad had left me a signed letter and a small velvet case. I read the letter twice, then a third time. I laughed a little, which sounds awful now. Paul asked what was so funny. I said, “Nothing,” and folded the paper back up.

The letter didn’t make Rick a good person. It didn’t make me one, either.

Dad had signed a dated gift statement for the watch before he got sick. It said he was giving it to me. It also said he wanted to keep wearing it for the rest of his life. That was the part he’d never told me, or Rick. Dad had included a copy of the railroad retirement paperwork, the watch’s serial number, and the appraisal he’d gotten years earlier.

The watch was mine before Dad died. He’d still wanted it on his wrist when they buried him, and I’d agreed to that. The gift statement didn’t say Rick could take it afterward. Dad had made sure of that.

He’d also left a short note about what he wanted me to do if Rick took it. I won’t repeat every line. The part I can’t get out of my head was simple: Don’t fight at the funeral. Let him make his own choice.

I know what that sounds like. Dad set a trap. I knew about it and let it happen.

I could tell myself I was following his wishes. I could say Rick had already decided to take the watch, and I only stood there. Both things are true. Neither one changes the fact that I watched him do it.

After the service, people came back to Dad’s house. They ate ham sandwiches and drank coffee from mismatched mugs. Rick stayed long enough to shake hands and tell Aunt Joyce he had an early flight. He didn’t ask to see the letter. He didn’t ask what Dad had left in the fireproof box.

He just patted his jacket pocket and left.

That night, after everybody had gone, I sat at Dad’s kitchen table. His chair was still pushed a little farther back than the others because of his oxygen tubing. The coffee ring on the table had been there for months. I’d tried to wipe it off once, but Dad told me not to bother.

I read the letter again. Then I put it away.

Paul asked if I was going to call Rick.

“No,” I said.

“He stole it.”

“I know.”

“You could’ve stopped him.”

“I know that, too.”

Paul didn’t push. He’d been there when Rick said the son who mattered line. He knew I was angry. He also knew I’d been waiting years for Dad to say something plain about how much I’d done.

I wanted Rick to find out from somebody else. That was part of why I stayed quiet. I wanted him to feel the same jolt I’d felt in the funeral home, hearing him talk about who mattered while Dad was lying right there.

That wasn’t justice. It was payback with nicer paperwork.

The next few days went by slow. I handled calls from the funeral home and tried to get Dad’s house in order. I put his pill bottles in a grocery bag, then took them back out because I couldn’t make myself throw them away. I washed his coffee mug, the one with the chipped blue handle, and set it upside down by the sink.

I kept thinking about the watch. Not because I missed it from his wrist. I missed the way Dad wound it before coffee, one hand around the little crown, his thumb rubbing the same place over and over. It was such a small habit. I never knew I’d end up wanting to keep it.

Rick didn’t call me. He didn’t ask about the estate. He didn’t ask how I was doing. On Thursday morning, I was making coffee again when my phone rang at 9:02.

Rick’s name came up on the screen.

“WHAT DID DAD DO?” he shouted as soon as I answered.

I pulled the phone away from my ear. I could hear another man speaking in the background, calm and low. Rick sounded like he was pacing.

“Rick, what are you talking about?”

“The watch. The jeweler says there’s a problem with the ownership.”

I looked at the envelope on the table. I’d put it beside my coffee, though I didn’t need it anymore.

“What kind of problem?”

“He says he can’t appraise it for me. He says it’s listed as yours.”

I waited a second. The coffee machine made a little clicking sound as it finished.

“Dad signed it over to me before he died,” I said.

“No, he didn’t.”

“He did.”

The man in the background said something about the date on the paper. Rick started talking over him.

“He can’t just do that. He told me I could have it.”

“Dad told you it should be buried with him.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

I didn’t answer right away. I wanted to say that he’d taken it in front of everyone. I wanted to say he’d called himself the son who mattered while I was standing there. I wanted to mention every dialysis trip, every night I’d answered the phone, every time I’d driven over because Dad couldn’t get the oxygen machine to work.

I didn’t say any of that. It wouldn’t change what the document said.

The jeweler asked to speak with me. Rick handed over the phone. I heard him mutter something about me setting this up.

The jeweler introduced himself as Mr. Harlan. He said Rick had brought in a gold railroad watch and asked for an appraisal. When he checked the papers Rick had brought, the signed gift statement was missing. The serial number matched the watch Dad had listed in his retirement records, and the old appraisal had the same number.

“I can’t tell your brother what he can do with his property,” Mr. Harlan said. “But I can’t treat this as his property when the paperwork says otherwise.”

I asked whether Rick had shown him anything else.

“He had the funeral home receipt,” Mr. Harlan said. “That only shows the watch was taken from your father after the service.”

Rick got back on the phone. His voice had dropped. That was worse than the shouting.

“You knew this would happen.”

“I knew Dad left papers.”

“You let me take it.”

I didn’t say no. I didn’t say yes, either.

“Did Dad really give it to you?”

I looked at the blue-handled mug by the sink. Dad had set it in the same spot every morning. I thought I’d answered this already, but I said it again.

“Yes.”

Rick was quiet for a bit. Then he said, “He never told me.”

“I know.”

That was the part Dad had chosen. He could’ve told Rick. He could’ve sat both of us down and explained it. Instead, he let me carry the paper and let Rick carry the watch. I don’t know whether that was because Dad was tired, or angry, or just wanted to see what Rick would do.

I know I shouldn’t make Dad sound wise just because he was my father. He was stubborn. He could be unfair. He knew exactly how to leave a problem for somebody else to clean up.

Rick wanted to speak to an attorney. I said that was his choice. I didn’t threaten him or tell him what it would cost. I sent him a copy of the signed statement, the old appraisal, and Dad’s letter. I kept the original papers in the fireproof box.

He called again that afternoon.

“I’m not giving it back just because you say so.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want the watch back.”

“You want me to mail it?”

“Yes.”

He let out a breath through his nose. I could hear the jeweler’s store music faintly in the background. He told me he’d need a day to think about it.

That night I slept badly. I kept hearing the clasp click open at the funeral. I kept seeing Dad’s bare wrist. I could’ve stopped it. I still could’ve.

The next morning, Rick called and said he’d talked to a lawyer. The lawyer had told him the signed gift statement appeared clear, and the watch could become part of a probate fight if he refused to return it. Rick said he didn’t want that.

“Dad made me look like a thief,” he said.

“You took it.”

“I thought it was mine.”

“You said Dad wanted it with the son who mattered.”

He didn’t answer. I knew I could have stopped there. Instead, I said, “You said it in front of Aunt Joyce.”

“I know what I said.”

That was as close as he came to apologizing. I was hoping for more. I was also not willing to ask for it.

He sent the watch by insured mail. It arrived in a plain box with the clasp shut. I signed for it on a Monday, the same kind of afternoon Dad used to sit in his chair and watch the local news. The package was heavier than I expected. I set it on the kitchen table and left it there until Paul came home.

Inside, the watch was wrapped in a paper towel. Rick had included no note.

I took it out and turned it over. Dad’s name was still there, along with the railroad dates. I rubbed my thumb over the engraving. The watch needed winding. I didn’t wind it.

I took it to the jeweler myself, not to sell it, just to have the clasp checked and the case cleaned. Mr. Harlan looked at the watch and then at the copy of Dad’s gift statement I’d brought.

“Same watch,” he said.

“I know.”

He checked the clasp. It held. He gave it back to me in a small envelope, and I carried it home in my coat pocket.

I didn’t put it on. I didn’t bury it in a drawer, either. It sits now in the velvet case Dad left beside the letter. I still haven’t decided what I’m supposed to do with it.

Rick and I haven’t had a real conversation since. He sent a text saying he was sorry for how he acted at the funeral. I read it twice, then put my phone down. I didn’t answer. That part was petty. I know it.

I got what Dad left me. I got the watch back. Rick found out the hard way that it was mine.

But every time I look at it, I remember standing beside the coffin and choosing not to stop him. I can tell myself Dad asked me to let him make his own choice. I can tell myself Rick made his. I can even tell myself I was protecting Dad’s funeral from a fight.

I still let my brother walk away with the watch because I wanted him to learn something in front of everybody.

The watch is back on Dad’s kitchen table, beside the blue-handled mug. It isn’t keeping time anymore.