Elsewhere(38)

4) Mypocket watch

Liz reads over her list. Seeing it all written down, she isn't sure what to make of it. Do I throw it out, or do I try to get everything back? Can you possibly do a combination of both?

Or, Liz thinks, was Betty just playing with her?

Liz has her answer. She laughs and throws the list away.

For a moment, Liz considers her pocket watch. It was strange that she had barely thought of her watch since coming to Elsewhere. The watch had been her father's before it was hers, and for years she had coveted it. Two lovers in a gondola were etched on the front, and her father's initials, A.S.H., were engraved on the inside. The watch made a peculiarly pleasing ticking sound, almost like a very low bell, and the silver was so frequently polished it was the color of the moon.

On her thirteenth birthday, her dad had said she was old enough to have the watch and he had given it to her. He made her promise to always clean and maintain it. About a month before she died, the watch had stopped, and she still feels guilty about not getting it repaired. She hates to imagine her father finding it broken and thinking that Liz hadn't cared about it at all.

Owen Welles Takes a Dive

Owen Welles was born to a college professor mother and a painter father in New York City. His parents were consistently delighted by their only child, a smiling, verbal, good-looking boy.

Owen's childhood passed easily and without trauma. When he was thirteen, he met the redhaired Emily Reilly, also thirteen. Emily was quite literally the girl next door. Owen lived in Apartment 7C, Emily in 7D. Owen and Emily shared a bedroom wall, and they would tap Morse code to each other late at night when they were both supposed to be asleep. It wasn't long before Owen went the way of many a boy next door: he fell in love with Emily. A series of proms and other photo opportunities followed, leading right up to high school graduation.

Following graduation, Emily went to college in Massachusetts, while Owen stayed for college in New York City. After four years of exorbitant long-distance bills, they were married at twentytwo.

In a bout of traditionalism that surprised everyone concerned, Emily even took Owen's last name.

Emily Reilly became Emily Welles.

To save money, Owen and Emily moved to Brooklyn. Emily went to medical school, and Owen became a firefighter. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be a firefighter forever, but he liked his work and was good at it.

In the year Owen turned twenty-six, he was killed fighting the most routine fire in the world. An eighty-one-year-old woman left a burner on; her four cats were trapped in the apartment. Owen located the first three cats easily, but the fourth, a young white torn called Koshka, eluded him.

Unaware of the fire, the cat had fallen asleep in a closet. Owen didn't find Koshka until the next morning. The cat was happily licking his paws at the foot of Owen's bunk on the Nile. Both he and Koshka had been asphyxiated. "I'm thirsty," the cat meowed. Unfortunately, Owen did not speak Catus.

Owen did not take his death well. It is much harder to die when one is in love.

Because of Emily, he did everything he could to get back to Earth. He tried to take the boat back, but he was discovered before it left the seaport.

He wasn't the first person to become addicted to the binoculars at the Observation Deck.

Exhausting an enormous supply of borrowed coins, Owen would watch Emily until his eyes glazed over.

He attempted the illegal deep-sea dive to the Well a record 117 times. He sometimes managed to communicate with Emily, but mainly he drove her insane. She missed Owen intensely, and his semiregular visits only made things worse. Emily dropped out of medical school. She just stayed at home, waiting for Owen to come back. Eventually, Owen realized what he was doing to her, and he knew he had to stop. He didn't want to be responsible for ruining her life. Because of Owen's experience with illegal Contact, he seemed a natural to work for the Bureau.

Now seventeen years old, Owen had worked at the bureau for nine years. Owen didn't have many friends and had only a few relatives he rarely saw. Once a week (never more, never less), he allowed himself to watch Emily from the binoculars. Every Thursday night he saw Emily grow older as he grew younger. At thirty-five years old, Emily was now a burn specialist. (She went back to medical school the fall after Owen's death.) She never remarried and still wore her wedding band. Owen wore a wedding band, too. He had bought a new one on Elsewhere to replace the one he had left behind on Earth.

At a certain point Owen realized that he would probably never see Emily again. He had done the math. In all probability, by the time Emily reached Elsewhere, Owen would be back on Earth. He had learned to live with this fact, but even ten years down the road, the only person for him was Emily Reilly.

When people asked him if he was married, Owen told them he was. This statement seemed like a lie and the truth at the same time. Not surprisingly, Owen often felt like a fraud. How could he advise other people to do what he had never been able to do himself? When he met a person like Liz, he was particularly ashamed. In his opinion, she legitimately wanted to move on and he had hindered her in that process. Owen felt the need to make amends.

And so, Owen takes a dive into the Well, his first dive for a personal reason in many years.

He peers over the Well's edge and quickly locates Liz's house in Medford, Massachusetts. Owen finds Alvy, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of apple juice.

Because Owen has made so many dives before, he is quite sophisticated at making Contact.