The Escapement

Henry Osgood opens his father's clock repair shop for the first time alone and confronts the fourteen unfinished repairs.

Henry repairs the second clock — a Seth Thomas mantel clock with a cracked bezel — and begins trying to find the owners of the uncollected timepieces.

Henry repairs the French carriage clock belonging to the mysterious D.K. and remembers his own departure from Montpelier at twenty-two.

Henry repairs the Weatherbee estate's schoolhouse regulator and visits his mother on Elm Street for Sunday dinner.

Henry repairs a wall clock whose pendulum swings but whose hands don't move, and Robert Payne comes to collect his Seth Thomas.

Henry repairs an Elgin pocket watch and remembers his marriage and divorce in New York.

The bellows arrive from Germany. Henry completes the cuckoo clock and closes out the first volume of repairs.

Henry remembers the drive north from New York to Montpelier six years ago, the arrival at the shop, and the first day his father placed a tool in his hand.

Henry begins the harder repairs with an anniversary clock whose torsion spring is broken, and learns more about Sarah Halliday.

Henry tunes the quarter-hour chime of an English bracket clock and James Okonkwo comes to hear it.

Henry repairs the desk clock of the deceased Michael Corvin and a woman named Margaret Corvin appears at the shop.

Henry confronts the ship's clock with its jammed striking mechanism and cracked bell, and Cal tells him something about Alistair he did not know.

The new bell arrives for the ship's clock. Henry installs it and hears the ship's bell striking for the first time.

Henry grinds the worn pallet stone of his mother's Ansonia clock and thinks about the fifty years of wear that shaped it.

Henry considers what to do with the clocks that have no owners to return to, and Edith Calloway sends a message.

Henry opens the drawer, removes the velvet pouch, and sees his father's Waltham pocket watch for the first time as a clockmaker.

Henry orders a new mainspring for his father's Waltham and learns the watch's history from Frances.

Henry straightens the bent hairspring and begins the assembly of the Waltham, working through the gear train.

Henry installs the mainspring barrel and the balance wheel. The Waltham ticks for the first time in thirty years.

Henry tests the Waltham in all six positions over several days, and the shop begins to change around him.

Henry places the Waltham movement into the gold case and closes it. Frances comes to the shop for the first time since Alistair's death.

Henry gives his mother the Waltham at Sunday dinner. He learns something about the watch that changes what he thought he knew.

Henry repaints the sign, opens the shop, and sits at the bench on a Tuesday morning in December.