There was no answer in the screenshots.
But there was another message.
My father had written, “We’ll get your boys back to you before the airport.”
Your boys.
Not the kids.
Not all three grandchildren.
Your boys.
I scrolled through the thread twice before I noticed what was missing.
Abigail’s name did not appear anywhere.
My brother finally understood it at the same moment I did.
“Oh, God,” he whispered.
I said nothing.
He asked whether Abigail was okay.
I told him she was asleep.
Then I asked him why our parents would deliberately make arrangements for his sons but not my daughter.
He said he didn’t know.
I did not yell at him.
He had made a careless assumption, but he had not put my child beside that road.
The people who had done that were currently on their way to an airport using money I had helped provide.
