Father’s Day had always been important in our home.
When the girls were little, they made cards covered in glitter and fingerprints. As teenagers, they prepared breakfast while pretending not to need my help.
That year, I woke to the smell of coffee and something burning.
I entered the kitchen and found Hazel waving a towel beneath the smoke detector.
“The toast attacked us,” she explained.
“The toast was innocent,” Iris said. “You abandoned it.”
They had prepared eggs, fruit, and a stack of slightly uneven pancakes. A paper crown sat beside my plate with the words World’s Most Stubborn Dad written across it.
Everything looked normal.
But the girls did not.
They kept exchanging glances.
Hazel barely touched her food. Iris tapped her fingers against the table.
Finally, I set down my fork.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Hazel answered too quickly.
I looked at Iris.
She had never been good at lying. Her cheeks immediately turned pink.
“Girls.”
Hazel took a breath and reached across the table for my hand.
“Dad, don’t get upset.”
Those words have never prevented a parent from becoming upset.
She continued.
“We’ve kept one thing from you for a long time.”
“How long?”
The sisters looked at each other.
“About six years,” Iris admitted.
My chest tightened.
Six years?
My mind raced through every terrible possibility.
“Are you in trouble?”
“No.”
“Did someone hurt you?”
“Never,” Hazel said firmly.
“Is this about your mother?”
They both shook their heads.
“Then what is it?”
Before either could answer, the doorbell rang.
The sound seemed unusually loud.
Hazel exhaled nervously.
“That’s probably him.”
“Him?”
She gave me an uneasy smile.
“You should answer it.”
I walked toward the door with my heart pounding.
For one irrational second, I thought Rebecca might be standing outside. Perhaps she had seen a video of the girls walking. Perhaps regret had finally caught up with her.
But when I opened the door, it was not their mother.
An older man stood in the hallway.
Silver hair.
Thoughtful brown eyes.
Samuel Price.
The antique shop owner.
He was holding a red velvet box.
My knees nearly gave out.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
I turned toward my daughters.
“Girls…what have you done?”
The Secret Called Project Time
Samuel stepped inside.
“You raised two determined young women,” he said.
I stared at the box.
“I sold that watch twelve years ago.”
“You did.”
“You told me it would probably be purchased by a collector.”
Samuel nodded.
“That was the plan.”
Hazel moved her wheelchair closer.
“When we were twelve, we found the receipt.”
I looked at her.
“What receipt?”
“The one from the antique shop,” Iris explained. “It was inside Grandpa’s old book.”
I remembered placing the receipt between the pages of my father’s favorite novel. I had forgotten it was there.
“We asked Aunt Claire to take us to the shop,” Hazel continued.
My sister had helped us occasionally over the years, but she had never mentioned this.
“She promised not to tell you,” Iris said. “Please don’t be angry with her. We begged.”
Samuel smiled faintly.
“They came into my shop with seventy-three dollars and a jar of coins.”
“Seventy-six dollars,” Hazel corrected.
“You counted the Canadian coins.”
“They were still coins.”
Despite myself, I nearly laughed.
Samuel continued.
“They asked whether I still had the watch. By chance, I did.”
“By chance?” I repeated.
He looked down at the box.
“No. Not entirely.”
Samuel explained that he had tried several times to place the watch for sale, but every time he opened the box, he remembered the exhausted father who had given up his family heirloom for his children.
So he placed it in the back of his safe.
He told himself he would sell it eventually.
He never did.
“When the girls arrived,” he said, “they asked me how much it would cost to buy it back. I gave them a number and told them there was no deadline.”
The girls named their plan Project Time.
For six years, they saved nearly everything.
Money from birthdays.
Art competitions.
Hazel’s tutoring work.
Iris’s online designs.
The profits from the accessible clothing patterns they created together.
Every time I asked how their college fund was growing, they showed me a separate account containing just enough money to make their story believable.
“You lied to me,” I said, although my voice had lost its anger.
“We strategically withheld information,” Hazel replied.
“You definitely lied.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But lovingly.”
Samuel held the red box toward me.
“They finished paying for it two months ago. I had the watch cleaned and repaired.”
I did not take it.
My hands were shaking too badly.
“You spent six years saving for this?”
Iris’s eyes filled with tears.
“You spent twelve years giving up everything for us.”
“That was different.”
“No,” she said softly. “It wasn’t.”
