Introduction

An unforgettable novel that captures the power of longing, loss, and love, The Time Keepers transports us from 1979 suburban New York to war-torn Vietnam, revealing that sometimes the most unexpected friendships can save us.

Two women from different worlds, Grace and Anh, are indelibly changed when a runaway boy is found on a street in their small Long Island town. Brought together by the love of this child displaced by war, the women find friendship and healing from their own painful pasts when their lives intersect with a mysterious wounded Vietnam vet. The vet, Jack, works at the Golden Hours, a watch store that mends timepieces—and might even mend damaged souls.

Richman interweaves the journeys of these wonderfully diverse characters who will grip, fill, and break your heart—only to bring them together with the care and precision of an expert watchmaker, one piece at a time. Inspired by the true story of a Vietnamese refugee who entrusted the dramatic account of her escape from Vietnam to the author, and also that of a wounded veteran, Richman sheds light on those whose lives were forever impacted by the devastation of that war.

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Excerpt

PROLOGUE

Vietnam, 1978

They have been waiting all night by the river, the dark water smooth as glass. They carry nothing but a bundle filled with food and canteens of fresh water all tied in a square piece of cloth. A single tin pot. A sack of lemons and a box of sugar.

The boat is late. The children are hungry. The men and women who are with them are standing still as trees.

The moon cuts through the darkness like a scythe. As they wait, looking for the boat they were promised, the tide inches closer to their silhouettes. They walk backward, retreating into the marsh, tall spears of reeds behind them. The cicadas loud in the wet grass.

It is the youngest boy who first sees the flash of light. A small beacon from a torch pulsating atop the head of the fisherman.

They walk into the river. Treading past the water hyacinth, a mass of green leaves and singular pink flowers. First, ankle-deep. Then, knee-deep. Finally, waist-deep. The children are afraid. Seaweed wraps around their legs, pulling them down. Still, they inch toward the boat. The weight of the river slowing them with each step until there is no sand or silt beneath their feet.

They reach their arms up toward the boat. The current flows against them. In the shadow of the ship’s hull, they see a woman extending her hand. A rope is thrown out to reach them, curling first on the surface of the water before sinking down.

PART I

CHAPTER 1

Long Island, 1979

Grace Golden would never know why, on that sunny afternoon in late May, she had chosen to walk down Gypsum Street after Mass instead of her usual route to the grocery store. Maple Avenue had always been the fastest way from Saint Bartholomew’s to Kepler’s Market.

Her husband, Tom, believed Grace picked Gypsum Street because the cherry blossoms there were at their peak. That was the thing about his wife, he explained. She’d always go out of her way to encounter something beautiful. But neither of them could have anticipated on that fine spring day, as Grace’s heels rhythmically struck the sidewalk, her shopping list tucked inside her leather purse, that she would notice a little boy curled up against the side of a building. Sleeping on the hard cement, his body was tucked so tightly, he reminded Grace of a small whelk nestled into its shell.

She stopped and hovered over him. Then she leaned down to nudge him.

“Are you lost, love?” The lilt of her Irish accent, still detectable afteryears of living in New York, floated through the air. “Let me help you up,” she offered her hand.

But the boy remained fixed in a fetal position, his arms locked even tighter around himself and his feet inched closer to his bottom. One of his tennis shoes had a hole in its rubber sole. The other was missing its laces.

She still could not see his face, only the tiny edge of his ear and the shock of straight black hair.

“Please.”

His head rose slightly, revealing his dark eyes, heart-shaped lips, and small nose.

It was the face of a child, frightened and alone.

CHAPTER 2

“I’m Grace.” She offered her name, hoping he’d also share his. But he remained silent. His body fixed to the sidewalk, still as a stone.

She unlatched the clasp of her handbag and pulled out a candy wrapped in shiny silver foil.

He studied her, then cautiously accepted the sweet. Grace took another piece from her purse and unwrapped it, placing the small chocolate in her mouth.

She looked around to see if she could spot anyone searching for a lost child or if a policeman was patrolling nearby. But Grace saw no one.

“Are you lost? Why don’t you come with me,” she said as she reached her hand out and guided the boy up from the ground.

He found his footing and now stood before Grace, but his eyes still avoided hers. His pants were too short, exposing his thin ankles, and the Incredible Hulk decal on his T-shirt was peeling. But Grace’s hand remained open, and eventually his fingers found their way into her own.

The warm touch of a child’s hand was instantly familiar to her. But through his grasp, she also felt his fear. The skin was clammy. The fingers were slippery.

He walked beside her, his hand fidgeting against her own. Every few minutes, she turned to catch a glimpse of him sideways: the bony limbs, the long lashes, the angular eyes. She estimated he might be around ten years old, close to the age of her younger daughter, Molly.

She did not stop at Kepler’s to pick up the eggs and milk and the various other provisions on her shopping list. Instead, she gripped his hand tighter, not even noticing the cherry blossom petals falling on their shoulders and hair.

A few blocks from home, she saw Adele Flynn walking toward her car.

“Grace?” Adele paused for a moment, her keys in one hand. “Is everything all right?” Her eyes scanned the boy with the worn clothes, the foreign face, and the averted gaze walking next to her friend.

Grace did not stop to chat. “Everything’s fine!” she hollered over her shoulder, ignoring Adele’s look of confusion as she led the boy toward her home.

Once there, she opened the front gate and walked past the rosebushes that grew exuberantly along the short path to her house. The child hesitated when they reached the front steps. He let go of her hand.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I’m going to make a call.” She pretended with her fingers to make a telephone to her ear. “We’ll get you home.”

She turned the doorknob and walked inside, the boy silent beside her.

“I’m back,” she announced, laying her bag on the sideboard. Her eyes fell upon Molly’s shoes by the stairwell and the girls’ coats on the floor, their sleeves carelessly inverted. Then to Katie’s backpack spilling out papers and brightly colored folders. The house bloomed with children.

For a split second, Grace tried to reconcile the reality of her household with the fact that she had brought a complete stranger into it.

“You’re home?” She heard Molly’s voice ring through the air before the girl bounded down the stairs, and her face immediately revealed her bewilderment.

“Mommy?” Her eyes were fixed on the strange boy next to her mother. “I thought you were going to Kepler’s. . . .”

Before Grace could answer, she turned and caught the reflection of her and the child in the large oval mirror beside the door.

He was shaking.

Tom was down in the basement with his ear pressed to an old wall clock that needed tuning when his wife returned. He stopped the pendulum with his finger and went to greet her.

Walking up the basement stairs, he pushed through the stiffness in his bad leg, gripping the banister tightly with each step. In the vestibule, he found Molly at the base of the stairwell, staring wide-eyed at a little boy standing beside his wife.

“Gracie?” Tom stepped closer. The faded image of the Hulk on the boy’s orange T-shirt seemed ironic; the boy’s arms were the width of a pine sapling.

“I found him curled up sleeping in a corner near Maple Avenue. I didn’t know what to do.”

Tom crouched down. “What’s your name, little fella?”

The boy shifted his weight from one foot to the other but still didn’t answer.

“We’ll have to call the police, Grace. Somebody out there has to be looking for him.”

“I know. I just thought it would be better to make the call from home. Not at Kepler’s, with everyone staring at us.”

“Want to wash up?” Grace made a simple pantomime of rubbing her hands together, then pointed toward the powder room.

He lifted his arm to move the hair out of his eyes, and that’s when she observed the scar on his left wrist. The shape of an open mouth, like someone had bitten him.

The boy noticed Grace staring at the old wound and covered it with his hand.

She opened the door to the bathroom and then went into the kitchen to call the police. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the publisher:

1. Grace and Tom Golden are not the typical married couple in Bellegrove. How do their backgrounds, with differing faiths, cultures, and citizenship, influence their own attitudes toward their new friendships with Jack, Anh, and Bao? Discuss the themes of outsidership versus insidership within a small, insular community. What connects the characters of The Time Keepers to their neighbors, and what separates them?

2. Jack, Bao, and Tom all have visible physical scars or injuries that make it impossible for them to hide their previous traumas, while the wounds from Anh’s and Grace’s painful pasts are not apparent to the naked eye. Do you think the visibility of scars affects certain characters’ experiences, compared to those whose signs of trauma are internal or hidden?

3. The Golden Hours store is—in some ways—the beating heart of the novel. The store was originally founded by Tom’s father, Harry Golden. How do Harry’s wartime experiences, horological education, and meditations on time contribute to his own healing as well as to the healing of those who later work at the store? While Harry and Jack only meet once in the novel, what did you take away from their shared experience?

4. At the end of the novel, Grace describes time as “not always following a linear path,” noting that “for some people, time radiated from a single epicenter, a point in time, where everything began and eventually returned.” Discuss how Jack’s enduring love for Becky defies the concept of time and how, despite its tribulations and setbacks, it remains a force that sustains him through his darkest moments.

5. Stanley Coates is one of the first people Jack meets when he arrives in Vietnam. He is described as being so innocent that he has never even drunk a bottle of beer. How is Stanley’s purity and lack of worldly experience viewed by his fellow platoon members? How does his death inspire—and change—them?

6. Maternal love is an important theme that resonates throughout The Time Keepers. Discuss how loss is entwined in both Anh’s and Grace’s respective maternal experiences, and how they find healing, purpose, and connection as they navigate the challenges of motherhood. Consider the impact of the maternal role played by women who are not the actual mothers of the characters they are tending to. How does Anh transform as she takes on the role of Bao’s new guardian? How does Grace, already a mother to two girls, grow when Anh and Bao come into her life?

7. Sensory memories have long been considered one of the most powerful tools that can connect us to our past. Jack finds himself traveling back in time when he hears a certain song on the radio, just as Bao remembers his mother’s love when he inhales the scent of mangoes. How do certain tastes, fragrances, or melodies tether us to our loved ones, both past and present? What are things in your own life that help you remember certain people and places?

8. In the author’s note, Richman mentions how she shifted between past and present in the novel in order to evoke how we process memory. Discuss how the passages that were written in present tense in the novel affected how you felt as you walked in the footsteps of the characters Jack, Bao, and Anh.

9. The author shifts perspectives on how the Vietnam War is experienced by the various characters—not only by a soldier and refugee, but also by family members who have lost a loved one. How did the shifting lenses of Jack, Bao, Anh, and even Adele change your perspective on how you think about this devastating war?

10. Buddy and Clayton represent a dark force in the community of Bellegrove. Discuss how their home environments might have impacted their development. Do you feel Buddy and Clayton were equally evil, or was one of them more malevolent than the other?

11. The Time Keepers explores how unexpected friendships can often have the power to heal us. There are many different friendships that arise in this novel: Anh and Grace, Bao and Molly, Jack and Tom, Jack and Bao, and even Jack and Hendrix. How do these positive friendships help each character overcome their previous traumas? What connects each of these characters, and what do they learn from their newly formed bonds?

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