My DIL Told Me I ‘Ruined Everyone’s Vacation Photos’ and Cropped Me Out of Every Picture – By the End of the Afternoon, She Was Desperately Trying to Undo What She’d Done

She had my water bottle in one hand and the little yellow instant camera I had given her for Christmas hanging from her wrist.

“You forgot this,” she said.

She sat beside me without asking. She was twelve, old enough to notice tension, but she still tried to ignore it whenever it popped up.

Then she said, “I heard what Mom said.”

I turned to her.

She swallowed.

“The part about immediate family.”

I asked, “What did your dad do after I left?”

She looked down at the camera.