“She’ll learn a lesson,” my dad said, like he was talking about forgetting a homework assignment and not abandoning an eight-year-old child in the middle of John Glenn Columbus International Airport. He said it as he adjusted his leather carry-on strap and shifted his first-class boarding pass from one hand to the other, while somewhere beyond TSA my daughter sat alone on a plastic chair, feet not even touching the floor. In the family group chat, the message came through like a bullet.
Come pick her up. We’re about to board. No context.
No apology. Just an order. Thirty seconds later, my mother added, like she was tightening a knife:
Don’t make us feel guilty.
She’ll learn a lesson. I was in a glass-walled conference room on the twenty-second floor of an office tower in downtown Columbus, staring out over the gray smear of the Scioto River and the winter skyline. My boss was talking about quarterly projections; my coworkers were nodding like bobbleheads.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. My phone—facedown beside my notebook—vibrated once, then again, then again. I shouldn’t have checked it.
Company policy said no phones during meetings. I was the one who usually followed the rules, the reliable project manager who color-coded her spreadsheets and stayed late to fix other people’s mistakes. But something in my chest went tight.
That primitive, animal part of me that doesn’t care about PowerPoints or corporate policy suddenly sat up and started screaming. I flipped my phone over. Family Group Chat.
Come get her. We’re about to board. For three full seconds, it didn’t compute.
I just stared at the words, my brain lagging behind reality. Come get who? Board what?
Then my mother’s message appeared. Don’t make us feel guilty. She’ll learn a lesson.
The blood drained out of my face so fast my ears rang. They had left my eight-year-old daughter alone at the airport while they boarded a flight to Orlando. My heartbeat roared in my ears, drowning out my boss’s voice, the hum of the projector, the faint whoosh of the HVAC.
I didn’t text back. I didn’t ask what they meant. I already knew.
My chair scraped loudly against the floor as I shoved it back. “Amber?” my boss said, frowning. “Everything okay?”
“No,” I heard myself say, my voice coming from somewhere far away.
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