“Don’t confront him there. He’ll twist it, and you’re in another country. Save every receipt you can. Send me the pictures. Get him home.”
“Grandma used savings.”
Mom’s voice shook. “I smiled in photos paid for by a woman he left crying.”
“I know, Mom.”
“What are you going to do?”
I looked at Grandma Elsie’s blue scarf hanging over the chair.
“I’m going to make sure he sees her.”
For the next two weeks, I took finals by day and built Dad’s welcome-home gift at Grandma Elsie’s kitchen table by night.
“What are you going to do?”
Mom sent photos without captions. Dad smiled in every picture like he’d earned the view.
Denver sent one room service receipt.
Then I printed Dad’s texts, the withdrawal slip, the airport receipt, and every photo where Grandma should have been standing.
Grandma Elsie watched from the doorway.
“Drea,” she said softly, “I don’t want a fight.”
“I know.”
“He’s still your dad.”
“I don’t want a fight.”
“And you’re still my grandma.”
She looked at the photos. “Maybe he’ll pay me back if I ask quietly.”
“Did he offer?”
“No.” Her eyes filled. “I don’t want everyone looking at me like I’m pitiful.”
I pulled out a chair. “Sit with me.”
She sat.
I opened the album.
“Sit with me.”
On the first page, Dad stood on the hotel balcony: “the view Grandma paid for.”
Next, Mom and Denver sat at a restaurant table: “the dinner Grandma paid for.”
Then they stood outside a museum: “the place Grandma practiced saying out loud.”
Finally, I turned to a family photo by a fountain. Opposite it, I had left a blank space.
“Grandma should have been here.”
Grandma Elsie covered her mouth.
“Grandma should have been here.”
“I’m not doing this to embarrass you,” I said. “He made you invisible.”
She stared at the blank space, then touched the scarf hanging on the chair.
“I want to wear it,” she said. “I was left out once. Not this time.”
***
When Dad came home two days later, Grandma Elsie sat in our living room wearing the blue scarf.
Mom had told him we were having a welcome-home dinner. He walked in sunburned and cheerful.
“Smells good,” he said. “Where’s my traveler’s welcome?”
“He made you invisible.”
