While we were waiting at the airport for our anniversary flight, my husband suddenly claimed he had forgotten his passport at home. I called my mother and asked her to grab it for him. Twenty minutes later, she called back, her voice shaking. “Honey, he set you up! Come home now!” Before I could ask why, she sent me a photo of something she had found in his bedside drawer. The moment I opened it, my heart sank. Suddenly, every strange thing he had done at the airport made perfect sense…

“Are all the missing items there?” I asked.

“Everything I took is in our garage. I haven’t thrown anything away.”

I picked up my handbag and told him we were going home to check. Dereck reluctantly agreed, although his expression suggested that he still believed I’d eventually accept his explanation.

When we arrived, the garage door was open, and several cardboard boxes were stacked beside Dereck’s workbench. On top of one box lay Dad’s old canvas tool apron, while a familiar wooden-handled hand plane rested beside it.

I recognized the hand plane immediately because one corner of its handle had been damaged when I accidentally dropped it at twelve years old. Instead of becoming angry, Dad had patiently repaired the chipped wood and taught me that damaged things weren’t necessarily beyond saving.

I picked up the tool and ran my thumb across the repaired corner, feeling the smooth surface he’d carefully restored decades earlier. Mom stood beside me, remembering that afternoon just as clearly as I did.