“Of course, I did,” I replied, my coffee now cooling beside me.
“You’re the best! New York in spring, can you imagine?” Her excitement was contagious, prompting a rare smile from me. But then, her tone shifted, a familiar undercurrent of expectation creeping in. “Actually, Dad, there’s one tiny thing. Michael mentioned we’d need extra for excursions and dinners. Could you maybe transfer another fifteen hundred?”
The kitchen seemed to shrink around me. “Emily, I’ve already covered everything. Flights, hotel—it’s all paid for. That’s the budget.”
Her sigh was audible, a ripple of impatience. “Fine. Thanks for the tickets, anyway.” The call ended abruptly, the absence of a goodbye lingering longer than her words.
Time slipped by, the days melding into a seamless blur. March 20th arrived with the subtlety of a thief in the night. My phone lit up with a notification: a voicemail from Emily. I pressed play, her voice filling the room with an unfamiliar flatness.
“Dad. You’re not flying with us to New York. My husband doesn’t want to see you. I know you paid for everything, but it’s better this way. We’ll still go, obviously, just without you. Sorry.”
Fifteen seconds. That was all it took to unravel months of anticipation. My husband doesn’t want to see you. Not we think it’s best, just him. And Emily had acquiesced without protest. Sorry, tacked on like an afterthought.
My heart clenched, a sensation akin to ice fracturing over a frozen lake. I’d spent years paying for the privilege of being sidelined, of being merely tolerated. And now, she had looked at those tickets, that hotel reservation, and deemed me dispensable. The money could stay; I, however, could not.
Determined, I picked up my phone again, navigating to the airline’s website. Three tickets. $5,200. Cancellation policy: a full refund minus a $200 fee if canceled more than fourteen days before departure. April 10th was the intended departure. I had time.
At 6 AM, I sat in my office, the space feeling expansive and liberating. With a steady hand, I hovered the cursor over ‘cancel reservation.’ I clicked. Are you sure? Yes, absolutely sure.
Next, I called the hotel. “I need to cancel a reservation,” I told the woman on the line, her voice chipper and unaware of the drama unfolding. “Change of plans.”
I hung up, leaning back in my chair, the room around me vast and uncluttered. Emily wouldn’t know of the cancellations yet, wouldn’t discover it until they were at the airport, facing the reality of vanished plans.
I deleted her voicemail, the fifteen seconds of rejection erased with a simple swipe. Then, with a resoluteness that surprised even me, I blocked her number and Michael’s. Clean breaks heal faster than ragged ones, and I was ready to start healing.