She talked more at dinner. She laughed more easily. I told myself, more than once, that whatever had shifted in my father, whatever late guilt or genuine love had finally surfaced in him, it didn’t much matter what had caused it as long as it was real.
Then, about two months before the trip, the actual ask arrived, dressed up carefully in the language of family and memory-making. They wanted to take Grandma to Europe. A real family trip, the kind Grandpa had always talked about and never quite managed to take her on, too busy running the
company, too careful with money that needed to go back into the business instead. Paris, then Florence, then a few days in Barcelona. First-class flights, a private tour guide, a hotel with a view of the Eiffel Tower that Aunt Monica sent a link to with three separate exclamation points in the caption.
