“Now that Dad is gone, you can keep them every time we travel. You are alone anyway, and it will be good for you to have some company.”
He did not ask. He decided.
His wife added that it would keep Carmen busy.
Carmen stood at the counter and felt a sharp, clean rush of anger move through her. Not the wild kind — the kind that clouds your thinking. The steady kind, that returns something to you.
They were carving up her future as casually as if it were an empty room they had found available.
She did not argue. She did not raise her voice. She stroked the side of one of the carriers and asked, very calmly, whether this arrangement would apply every time they traveled.
Daniel shrugged with the ease of someone who has never had to question whether his comfort costs someone else something.
“Of course. You have always been the one who solves everything.”
He said it as though it were praise.
Carmen recognized it for what it actually was.
The Call That Made the Decision Final
That night she opened the drawer where she kept her passport, her ticket, and the printed confirmation for her cabin.
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