When we got home, Emma carried her little drawing straight to her room without saying much. Usually on Christmas Eve she’d already be asking to open cookies early or telling me which cousin got the loudest toy, but that night she just disappeared down the hallway still wearing those red tights my mom used to buy for her every December. I stood in the kitchen listening to the heater kick on and off while snow kept blowing against the back porch.
About twenty minutes later, my phone rang. Dad.
At first he sounded more shocked than angry. Asked if I had really canceled the cruise. I told him yes. The whole thing. Alaska, the train package, the hotel, all of it. Then came the silence, because I don’t think he realized until that moment that none of it had actually been paid for by him. Last spring he’d told me retirement was getting tight and he wanted to do one last big trip with Mom while they still could. I booked everything through my company account and just never brought it up again.
He started saying Emma being left out was “a misunderstanding,” that there were too many gifts and too many people in the room. Then Emma walked halfway down the hall and quietly asked me if Grandpa was mad at her.
Dad heard her.
And after that, neither of us said anything for a while.