Then she asked, “Did I ruin the trip?”
“No,” I said.
This time my brother said it with me.
“No.”
In the weeks that followed, my parents tried several different versions of the story.
First, they said Abigail had been perfectly safe.
Then they said they had panicked.
Then they said they assumed I was already nearby.
Then they blamed the traffic, the shuttle schedule, the vomiting, the boys, and finally me.
What they never did was offer an explanation for the part that mattered most.
Why had they planned a pickup for my nephews but none for Abigail?
There was no innocent answer to that.
They had simply expected me to absorb the problem after they created it.
That expectation had governed our relationship for years.
A shortfall appeared; I paid it.
A crisis appeared; I handled it.
An insult appeared; I swallowed it.
They had mistaken my reliability for permission.
