My 8-year-old adopted granddaughter was left at home while my son and his wife took their biological son. She called me at 2:00 AM crying, ‘Why Grandpa?’ I booked last-minute tickets and within 12 hours we crashed their vacation!

“They asked me to just keep an ear out, but they never gave me medical authority or emergency info,” she said.

She admitted that she had seen a pattern of neglect for a long time and felt guilty for not calling me sooner.

“Daisy does not ask for much because she has learned that asking leads to disappointment,” Mrs. Gable noted.

By late afternoon, Daisy was painting my fingernails with silver glitter on the living room rug.

My phone rang and it was Patrick again, so I answered it and walked into the hallway.

“Dad, I am glad you are there, but you need to understand that this was a judgment call,” he said.

I told him that it was not a judgment call to leave an eight year old alone while going to a theme park.

“Is Toby there with you right now?” I asked while I listened to the sounds of Universal Studios in the background.

Patrick tried to argue that it was not fair of me to judge him, but I told him that fairness was a complicated subject.

I listed all the trips and events that Daisy had been excluded from over the past year.

“The Christmas photo where she did not have a matching sweater was an accident,” he claimed.