Jeffrey Renner was driving to the airport straight into the rising sun. His thoughts shifted from a vague consideration of the upcoming site-walkthrough in Seattle to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. His point of view put him alternately in the cockpit of a Zero and on the deck of a battleship firing some sort of anti-aircraft weapon at the Kamikaze. Jeff had never fired a gun, not even the handgun he’d given Julie a month ago, or flown an airplane, so his thoughts here were amorphous. He imagined the plane crashing into the sea, and for a moment he was both the drowning pilot and the jubilant sailor, though he recognized that the sailor was not so likely to be jubilant, there being dozens and dozens of other Zeros circling like buzzing wasps. It was only a matter of time.

Jeff glanced down at his left wrist and his watch wasn’t there. He frowned. The watch was a gift from his wife Julie, a replacement for his dad’s watch, which he’d worn faithfully ever since inheriting it, until it had stopped some six months ago.

“Probably just needs a new battery,” Julie had said when Jeff mentioned it to her on an early morning walk along the beach.

“But I can’t even turn the knob to set it,” Jeff said. I’m afraid maybe something’s snapped.”

Julie peered at the dial, at the frozen hands. “Hm, 3:33. So it must have stopped last night.”

“Luckily it’s not 6:66.”

“You’re funny,” Julie said. “There is no 6:66.”

“Lucky for me.”

Jeff had taken the watch to a watch repair shop, and the man there looked at it and frowned and said it wasn’t worth fixing.

“But it was my dad’s,” Jeff said.

“Let me put it this way, if it can be fixed at all, it would cost a fortune.”

At home Julie watched Jeff store the watch in his sock drawer next to his Phi Beta Kappa pin and said, “That’s so sad, honey.” A day later she bought him a present: a very expensive watch. “It’ beautiful,” Jeff said, trying it on. “It feels great. You’re so good to me. I love you.”

While they were making love to celebrate, the new watch snagged Julie’s hair. It took several minutes for Jeff to get it untangled. Julie laughed when the watch was finally free of her hair, though Jeff noticed the stain of a teardrop on her cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll try to be more careful.” He took off the watch and set it on the bedside table. Julie shook her mop of wild, rust-colored hair. “Do you think it’s an omen?” she said. When Jeff frowned, Julie laughed and opened her arms and said, “Now where were we?” After that time, Jeff always made sure to take off his watch before bed or sex. At home he would set it on the computer table in the den while making a last check of his email.

But last night he hadn’t taken it off in the computer room because the phone lines were down again, probably from that storm the other night. He’d taken it off when he undressed for bed and had set it on the dresser.

Now that he wasn’t wearing the watch, he missed it. He glanced again at his wrist. He thought about turning the car around and going back to get it. That would be silly. Julie would still be asleep. He thought of her in their bed, dreaming. He thought of their love-making last night. They always made sure to make love on nights before Jeff would be out of town. Julie’s ardor was invariably keen on those nights, and she was much more aggressive than usual, sometimes almost fierce in her love play. “I have to store you up,” she’d say.