Four hours passed. At noon, I saw a post from Hannah. They were at a waterfront restaurant—the kind with a three-month waiting list. My parents were beaming. The caption read: “Best surprise visit ever. The kids are spoiled rotten this week.” My mother had commented: “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

The irony was a physical weight. She hadn’t missed me for four years, yet she wouldn’t miss a baseball game with Hannah’s toddlers “for the world.”

At 3:00 p.m., I called my father. The background was a cacophony of domestic life: shrieking children, clinking porcelain, Hannah’s sharp laughter.

“Hey, Soph,” he said, his voice as casual as if we spoke every day. “Everything okay?”

“I was checking on dinner,” I said, my voice tight. “I’ve got the table set again.”

There was a pause, the kind of silence that precedes a practiced excuse. “Tonight might be tricky, sweetheart. Hannah’s place is just more convenient with the little ones. And honestly, your mother doesn’t want to keep packing up and driving back and forth.”

“Packing up?” I asked, my grip tightening on the phone. “Dad, I paid for a rental car so you wouldn’t have to worry about convenience. It’s a thirty-minute drive.”

He sighed, the sound of a man inconvenienced by his daughter’s existence. “We’re in the same city, Sophia. We’re seeing you… generally. Don’t make this a thing.”