I thanked him for the update and hung up.

At 6:11 p.m., Marissa called again. This time, I answered.

Her voice came through thin and sharp. “Did you do this?”

I leaned against the counter and looked at Ellie, who was building a tower out of sugar packets.

“Do what?”

“Don’t play dumb. The cards are dead. The cabin is about to be canceled. Mom is freaking out. Dad’s acting like this is my fault, and it’s not. Tell me what you changed.”

There was a time when that tone would have made me apologize for things I hadn’t done. That time was over.

“I stopped paying for people who don’t care if I’m there,” I said.

There was silence on the other end.

Then she said, smaller now, “You’re really going to ruin this trip over one mistake?”

One mistake.

I almost asked her which mistake she meant. The boarding pass? The canceled seat? The text message? The years of being treated like the spare tire of the family?

But I was tired, and Ellie was watching me, and I realized I didn’t need her answer.

So I said, “You didn’t make a mistake, Marissa. You made a choice.”

She didn’t speak.

I continued, “You chose to leave me at the airport. You chose to humiliate me in front of my daughter. You chose to send that message like you wanted me to know exactly how little I matter to you.”

“Don’t drag Ellie into this.”

That almost made me smile.

“Too late. You dragged her into it the second you decided she wasn’t worth a seat on the plane.”

She started to say something else, but I ended the call.

Two hours later, my father called from an unknown number. I answered because I wanted to hear the lie in his voice.

He didn’t disappoint me.

He said they had “assumed” I was taking a later flight. He said they were “under pressure.” He said Marissa had handled the booking and there must have been some kind of misunderstanding.

I listened until he ran out of words.

Then I asked him one simple question.

“When was the last time anyone in this family asked whether Ellie and I were actually coming?”