Five Gold Days

5 Gold Days

The hustle and bustle of last minute shoppers filled the store as I hastily restocked what little supplies we had left from our last shipment. Less than a week before Christmas and I was stuck working 12 hours shifts. Which left almost no time for family.

I finished restocking the display and stood up, picking up the empty cardboard boxes and marching over to the checkout counter, storing the cardboard underneath before helping my coworkers with the long line of customers.

"McKenna could you take the next few customers, I have an unruly one with expired coupons." Sierra, one of my coworkers pleaded, rolling her eyes when she mentioned the coupons.

"Absolutly Sierra," I spoke to her, then shouted to the crowd, "I can take the next five customers!"

After a few more hours of impatient customers and holiday music on repeat, I finally clocked out at 8:00pm. I rushed to my employee locker and grabbed my present for the holiday party before heading off towards my car. I arrived at the party, placing my gift on the table next to my parents' tree and soon found the hosts.

"McKenna! Aww sweetie how good to see you. I'm so glad you could make it." My mother said, coming over and hugging me briefly. "We were worried you weren't going to make it with that job of yours."

"Yea, I was worried too. Luckily my boss felt generous today, but I'll be putting in extra hours tomorrow, so it doesn't come without cost." I shrugged. Looking around the house I noticed just how many people were here. Most I knew as relatives and estranged cousins; however, there were the few guests that I didn't know-probably some friends of my parents.

We decided to continue talking later, as I walked away to mingle me catch up with relatives. In the midst of a talk with my second cousin I saw him, Victor, my ex fiancé. I quickly-and I'll admit rather rudely-broke off my conversation and found my parents once again.

"Why did you invite Victor? You know he called off the wedding and we haven't been together for over a year." I questioned, feeling anger and hurt.

"Why McKenna, he is still family. You two were to be married and I would consider him my son any day." My father replied.

"We are not married. We are not even friends, we have moved so far backwards we are acquaintances who happen to have a relationship history. I want him gone." I grieved, worried about running into him after all this time.

"Oh no honey we can't do that, he is as welcome here as you are. Why don't you at least try to get back on friendly terms?" My mother offered up, leading me to internally groan.

"No, this is not happening. I'll be outside if you need me..."

"McKenna wait! At least open your present from us." My mom pleaded. I relented and soon was present with a small box, the size of my hand, wrapped in blue-gold paper. I tore the paper off, revealing a white box which I removed the lid and found inside a silver pocket watch.

I looked at the gift in confusion, holding up the chain linked to the round object. "What is this..."

"It's a pocket watch, dummy."

"No, I know that. What I mean is-" I stumbled around trying to find a way of asking them why they got my something from the 1700's but I couldn't. "Nevermind, thank you. It's a wonderful gift." I smiled and hugged both mother and father before pocketing the gift and taking my leave for some fresh, cool air.

I leaned on the back porch railing, brushing off the snow that had collected on it in the days before and took a deep breath, savoring the cold. I let my mind wander to the strange gift and took it out of my pocket, examining the small details. I opened it up to see the numbers 1-12 in a cursive font, with and hour and minute hand ticking away and in the bottom-center, a small circle with the number 5 in the middle.