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…

He’d taught me that broken objects deserved careful examination before anyone decided they were worthless. Yet my husband had looked at an entire workshop filled with memories and seen nothing more than money for a kitchen renovation.

I carried the hand plane into our kitchen and placed it on the table. Dereck followed me, insisting that he’d only wanted to improve our home and hadn’t intended to cause so much pain.

“Sheila, I’m sorry. I thought once you saw the new kitchen, you’d understand why I did it.”

I turned toward him, wondering whether he truly regretted his actions or merely regretted being discovered. His apology sounded hollow because he’d spent weeks making decisions he knew would hurt me.

“Are you sorry you arranged the sale, or are you sorry my mother found the receipt?”

Dereck remained silent, unable to offer an answer that would make his behavior understandable. I realized that the problem wasn’t the money, the storage expenses, or even the renovation he’d wanted.