This weekend was perfect. No screens, no stress, just five of us packed into a boat with pedals, drifting around the lake like we did when we were little.
The twins were goofing around in the front, trying to splash each other. I stretched out behind them, half listening to their laughter, half watching Daddy pedal with his calm smile. But something wasn’t right.
He kept checking his watch.
More than once. More than once and more than twice. Constantly. Like he was chasing something none of us could see.
‘Dad, chill out,’ I finally teased. ‘You have nowhere else to be.’
He smiled, but didn’t say anything back.
Later, as we paddled back to shore and the sun began to lower in the sky, I couldn’t shake the strange feeling. It wasn’t just the constant checking of his watch – it was everything about him that day. He was quieter than usual, more detached, even though he was physically right next to us. It was like he was present, but somehow…absent.
I tried to brush it off. After all, we were all together for the first time in years. Because of work, school, and everyday life, family trips were less frequent than I’d like to admit. I didn’t want to spoil my mood with unnecessary thinking. But I kept glancing at Dad as he got up to stretch and looked at his watch again, frowning slightly.
After the boat ride, we returned to the cabin, and the evening went on as usual: we laughed at dinner, played card games, and told stories about being kids. But every now and then my gaze would shift to Dad.
Only later, as we sat around the fire roasting marshmallows, did I notice that he seemed to have withdrawn even more. I caught him checking his watch again, but this time his face was more serious, more focused.
‘Dad, what’s going on?’ I asked, and the question burst out on its own before I could stop myself.
He paused, taking a slow breath. ‘Nothing, just… you know how it is. Just keeping track of time.’
There was something strange about the way he said it. He’d never been so evasive before. I exchanged a glance with my brother. Something was definitely wrong, but Dad wasn’t telling us what.
Later that night, lying in my room, I heard him moving around the kitchen. It was a soft, familiar sound – he always made himself a cup of tea before bed. But tonight it seemed different, hurried. Like he was waiting for something.
The next morning I woke up to an empty kitchen. Mum was already up, putting together the last of the breakfast dishes. The twins were arguing over the last piece of bacon. But Dad was nowhere to be found.
I figured he’d gone for a walk or a breath of fresh air. But then I noticed something strange: his watch, which he checked constantly, was on the kitchen table.
It hit me like a tonne of bricks. I’d seen him take it off the night before, and watched as he carefully placed it on the counter, just a few feet from where I stood. He hadn’t worn it that evening.
A wave of anxiety swept over me. I grabbed the watch and started looking through the back of it, hoping to find something that would explain his behaviour. And then I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before: a small engraving on the back of the watch.
It read: ‘To my dearest Jane, always waiting for you.’
The name struck me like a bolt of lightning. Jane? Who was Jane? I couldn’t remember ever having heard of Jane. I turned the watch in my hands again, trying to make sense of it.
At that moment, my mum walked in. She looked at the watch in my hands and her face went pale.
‘You need to sit down,’ she said, her voice trembling.
I carefully put the watch back down, my heart pounding frantically. Something about this moment felt wrong. I sat down at the kitchen table, waiting for Mum to explain.
‘I should have told you sooner,’ she began, her voice trembling. ‘But I couldn’t. Not like this. Your father…he wasn’t always what you thought he was.’
I felt my chest tighten. ‘What do you mean?’
She took a deep breath before continuing, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Before he met me, before you were born, he had a different life. He had a woman named Jane. They were going to get married. But something happened, and it changed everything.’
She paused, wiping her eyes with the back of her palm. ‘Jane was in an accident, a car crash. Your father did everything he could to save her, but she…she didn’t survive. He was devastated and promised her he would wait for her. But after everything… I guess he never got on with his life. He carried that promise with him all those years. Even when we were together. Even when you were born. I think he was always waiting for her to come back.’
I sat in stunned silence. Everything I thought I knew about my father, about our family, was crumbling before my eyes. He had carried this secret, this pain all these years, and none of us knew it. I couldn’t understand how he had managed to keep something so important from us, but when Mum spoke, I began to understand the depth of his grief.