David Parkin
David Parkin is a wealthy businessman who collects clocks. His mother abandoned him and his father when David was young. When his father dies, he inherits a prosperous mine. He sells the mine and buys a mansion in Salt Lake City for him and his mother. His mother abandons him again choosing to run off with a man to Chicago. He meets and falls in love with Mary Anne Chandler. He asks her to marry him and they marry in the space of five months. David is well respected in the community and has many friends.
Mary Anne (Chandler) Parkin
Mary Anne Parkin is a daughter of British nobility who fell on hard times. She takes a job as secretary to David Parkin. She is pregnant by her finance who left her when he found out she was pregnant. She tells David this when he asks her to marry him. He does not care and raises her child as his own.
Andrea
Andrea is the daughter of Mary Anne Parkin. Mary Anne was pregnant with another man’s child when she married David Parkin. David treats the girl as his own. She is an innocent child who dies at three and a half in a house fire.
Narrator
The narrator is a man who knew Mary Anne Parkin. He and his family lived with her for a short time in her mansion. He tells the story of David and Mary Anne Parkin and the timepiece that she bequeath to him to give to his daughter upon her wedding.
Jenna
Jenna is the daughter of the narrator. She is getting married and the narrator gives her the rose gold wristwatch that figures prominently in the narrative. Mary Anne Parkin asked that it be given to the girl on the eve of her wedding.
Gibbs
Gibbs is a childhood friend of David Parkin. He came to Salt Lake City with David and helps him run his company.
Lawrence Flake
Lawrence Flake is a horologist. He is a friend of David Parkin and helps him obtain many of the clocks that he collects. Lawrence is looked down on in the community because he is African American.
Katherine
Katherine is the Parkins’ housekeeper. She makes the arrangements for David and Mary Anne’s wedding and Mary Anne loves her like a sister.
Widow Maude Cannon
Widow Maude Cannon bequeaths Lawrence Flake a rose gold wristwatch. She enjoys his company and wants to give him something to remember her. She leaves the rest of her estate to charity because she does not like her nephew, Everen Hatt and refuses to leave him anything.
Everen Hatt
Everen Hatt is the nephew of Maude Cannon. He tries to kill Lawrence Flake because his aunt gave him the rose gold watch. He is killed by Lawrence Flake. David Parkin takes responsibility for the death.
Cal Barker
Cal Barker is a friend of Everen Hatt. He wants to avenge his friend’s death. He and his friends attack Lawrence and set the Parkin’s house on fire. The fire kills Andrea Parkins, the Parkin’s three-year-old daughter.
Officer Brooks
Officer Brooks is the officer who investigates the death of Everen Hatt and the death of Andrea Parkin. He offers to let Mr. Parkin kill Cal Barker with his revolver and he will say that he killed him in that attempt to bring him in.
Martha Barker
Martha Barker is the daughter of Cal Barker. She is the same age as Andrea. Five years after the death of Andrea, Martha goes to the Parkin’s house to ask for food because she is starving. Mary Anne gives her food and money to take home to her family.
