When my stepdaughter invited me to dinner after a year of silence, I thought maybe—just maybe—we were finally going to fix our relationship.
I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that simple.
Hyacinth and I had never been close. I married her mother when she was a moody teenager, and we’d spent years politely avoiding each other. So when she called me out of nowhere and suggested we meet at a high-end restaurant, I was suspicious. But I went anyway, hoping for a breakthrough.
From the moment I arrived, something felt off. She was dressed up, smiling too brightly, ordering the most expensive dishes without even asking what I wanted. She barely made eye contact, answering my questions with one-word replies.
Then, when the bill arrived, she disappeared to the bathroom—and didn’t come back.
I sat there, staring at the check, feeling like an idiot. Had she really just tricked me into paying for her fancy dinner?
I was about to leave when I heard a laugh behind me.
I turned to see Hyacinth holding a cake with “Congrats, Grandpa!” written across it.
My jaw dropped.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, grinning. “And I wanted to tell you in a way you’d never forget.”
Turns out, the whole awkward dinner had been a setup. She’d planned it with the waitstaff, pretending to ignore me, even staging her “disappearance”—all to make the announcement unforgettable.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
For years, I’d wondered if we’d ever be family. Now, standing there with balloons in my hands and frosting on my shirt, I realized: we already were.
