Blue Italian (1996)

Rita Ciresi's novel, published by the Ecco Press in 1996, is the story of Rosa Salvatore and Gary Fisher, who first reaches her by telephone from a legal-aid office on Congress Avenue about a client with a kidney problem, and of the illness that later overtakes Gary. (Open Library)

Watches

Seiko (unidentified model): After Gary's death Rosa keeps very few of his things, hoarding them like a child in one of her father's old Dutch Masters cigar boxes: his silver Cross pen, the keys to his Subaru, the black Seiko watch his parents brought back from Hong Kong, his wallet and the wedding band she forgot to bury with him, which had grown too loose for him to wear. A few pages later she adds a pair of booties to the box, still keeping "the Seiko". The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: She held onto Gary's silver Cross pen, the keys to his Subaru, the black Seiko watch his parents had brought back from Hong Kong, the brown leather wallet that had conformed to the curve of his butt, and his gold wedding band (Rita Ciresi, Blue Italian, scan cataloged as Ecco Press, 1996, p. 279; the Seiko is named again on p. 282; Internet Archive scan OCR)