For Our Vow Renewal, I Wanted to Do Something Special—So I Made Her Dress.

I had been married to my wife for about thirty years.

I made the decision to give Janet something special for the vow renewal I had been covertly organizing around a year prior to our anniversary.

I began knitting as a result. When I was little, my grandmother taught me how. I had become rather skilled at creating basic items like sweater vests and scarves.

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However, I decided to make Janet a dress this time.

When Janet wasn’t home, I worked on that dress for almost a year.

For the vow renewal, I wanted to create something significant for Janet.

I turned the garage into a covert workspace. The clack of my needles would be nearly drowned out by the radio as I crept out there late at night.

Tom, where’d you vanish to?” she would occasionally text.

In response, I would write, “Just tinkering. Be in soon.”

Despite seeing the red bruises on my hands, Janet refrained from pushing. “You and your projects,” she would shake her head.