My daughter uninvited me from the $5,200 New York trip I had

The morning light filtered through my kitchen window, catching the steam rising from my coffee mug. January 15th. I’d been awake since 5 AM, staring at my laptop screen. Booking.com glowed back at me, cursor blinking in the credit card field. Three tickets to New York. Round trip from Seattle, April 10th. The Grand Excelsior Hotel, Times Square. Seven nights. My fingers hovered. $5,200. Most of my January pension check and a chunk of savings. For what?

For moments like last Christmas, maybe, when my son-in-law, Michael, barely looked at me across the dinner table. For my daughter, Emily’s, tight smile when I arrived, the one that said she wished I’d brought a bigger check instead of just showing up.Ten years since my wife, Martha, died. Ten years of trying to be “enough” for our daughter. I typed the numbers anyway, pressed confirm. Thirty seconds later, the confirmation email arrived.