“He stayed at the hospital,” Patricia said. “Your mother was there, and the doctors had already started treatment, but Robert was frightened.”
I looked down.
“Vanessa was alone?”
“Her mother went with her. So did I. But she’d spent weeks preparing because she wanted her father to see her work.”
“Did he apologize?”
“Yes.”
“Did he go see the exhibition later?”
Patricia shook her head.
“The display came down the following day. He took Vanessa out for dinner the next weekend.”
I imagined my sister at eighteen, standing beside the paintings she’d worked on for months, watching the door for someone who never arrived.
Then I remembered how proudly Dad attended every school performance of mine.
Every recital.
Every graduation.
My stomach tightened.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because you were a sick child,” Grandma answered. “It wasn’t your responsibility.”
I nodded.
She was right.
But I suddenly understood that Vanessa and I had been remembering two very different childhoods.
I’d remembered our father as dependable.
She’d remembered waiting.
“Was that the only time?” I asked.
Patricia didn’t answer immediately.
“No.”
She told me about birthdays Dad rescheduled, a summer visit he’d canceled because of work, and school meetings he missed because he couldn’t rearrange his schedule.
Not every disappointment was his fault.
But the pattern mattered.
Dad had built a new household with my mother and me.
Vanessa had remained part of his life, but she was often the one expected to adjust.
I pressed my palms against my knees.
