My 7-Year-Old Daughter and Her Dad Started Having ‘Private Talks’ in the Garage – So I Set Up a Hidden Camera and Immediately Regretted It
Inside were balls of yarn, knitting needles, and a folded sweater.
He lifted the sweater and laid it flat on the table.
It was pink, kid-sized, a little lumpy.
My hand flew to my mouth.
Across the front, in purple yarn, were uneven letters:
“I have the best mom in the world.”
My hand flew to my mouth.
Lizzie climbed onto a folding chair and leaned over it, beaming.
Jason sat beside her and pulled out another sweater, bigger, still on the needles.
He said something I didn’t catch; she laughed hard enough to almost fall off the chair.
They stayed like that for nearly an hour.
I turned my phone volume up a little more.
He showed her how to wrap the yarn, how to fix a mistake. His movements were confident. This wasn’t new to him.
She mimicked him, brow furrowed, tongue peeking out.
Every so often she held the pink sweater up. He’d pretend to be blinded by its greatness.
They stayed like that for nearly an hour. Knitting. Talking. Laughing.
“How were your private talks?”
When they finished, he wrapped everything back in paper, disappeared down the stairs with it, and closed the hidden door. The rug went back. The room looked normal again.
By the time they left the garage, my phone was on the coffee table, facedown.
“How were your private talks?” I asked, hoping I sounded casual.
“The best,” Lizzie said.
Jason smiled. “Still top secret.”
I opened the app again.
I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that sweater.
The next time they went into the garage, I tried not to watch.
Then my brain whispered, What if you were mistaken about what you saw?
I opened the app again.
Same routine. Rug back. Door up. Brown package.
This time, when he unwrapped it, there were more pieces.
Jason laughed and showed her how to fix it.
Jason had a gray sweater, adult-sized, almost finished. The letters across the front weren’t complete, but I could read enough:
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