He Gave Her Seat to His Childhood Sweetheart

My mother dropped her voice, like she was afraid someone might hear.

"They said the tickets are wrong."

"They said these are yesterday's tickets, no good for today."

"They've already made us get off."

A sharp ringing went through my head.

Karl had said he'd taken care of everything.

So this was what "taken care of" meant. He'd bought my parents two expired coach seat tickets.

I gripped the phone tighter.

"Mom, where are you right now?"

My mother said in a rush,

"Alice, don't blame Karl."

"He's got so many people to arrange. A mix-up in all that chaos is only normal."

Beside her, I heard my father trying to hold back a cough.

"We'll just wait here at the station for a bit."

"It's no trouble."

"Don't let it hold up your boarding."

They'd been thrown off the train.

Left standing in an unfamiliar train station.

And still they were making excuses for Karl.

My eyes stung with heat as I turned to look at him.

"You bought my parents yesterday's tickets?"

Karl's expression shifted, just slightly.

"What?"

I held the phone up in front of his face.

"They got kicked off the train."

"This is what you call taken care of?"

At last Karl's brow furrowed.

It was as though he was only now realizing this might actually be a problem. He frowned.

"The assistant probably made a mistake when booking the tickets."

"Don't get worked up just yet."

As he spoke, he pulled out his phone and made a call.

"I'll have my assistant go pick up your parents."

"We won't fly today after all."

"I'll rebook us all to leave together tomorrow."

He said it quickly, his tone softening a little.

Like he was managing some sudden incident.

But as I watched him, something in me kept turning colder.

If I hadn't kept pressing him.

If my mother hadn't called.

Would my parents have been left at that train station, clutching their luggage, waiting until dark?

That was when Nellie came over, her eyes red.

"It's all my fault."

"If my relatives hadn't added people at the last minute, your parents wouldn't have lost their plane tickets."

She said it, and her voice dropped lower still.

"But it's my parents' first time traveling so far, and I was scared there'd be no one to look after them."

Karl looked at her at once.

"How is any of this your fault?"

"Stop taking everything on yourself."

Watching the way he shielded Nellie, I suddenly felt the whole thing was absurd.

My parents had been bought the wrong tickets and thrown off the train.

His first reaction was that it was a nuisance.

Nellie's eyes went red.

And he was instantly aching for her, as if she'd suffered some terrible wrong.

A little over half an hour later, the assistant brought my parents to the airport.

The moment my mother saw me, she hurried to hide the plastic bag in her hand behind her back.

Inside was the peanut brittle she'd prepared to bring to the island.

It must have gotten crushed in the crowd back on the platform. The bag had split open, some of the brittle broken to pieces, sticking to the clear plastic.

My father had a hand pressed to his lower back, his face frighteningly pale.

Yet when he saw Karl, the first words out of his mouth were,

"Karl, sorry for the trouble we've caused you."

"It was the two of us, we didn't read the tickets right."

My nose prickled.

"Dad."

But Karl only glanced down at his watch.

"At least it didn't hold us up too long."

My mother held out that broken plastic bag, smiling carefully.

"Karl, this is peanut brittle I made myself."

"And a little dried fish too, for your parents."

"It's my first time meeting all those relatives of yours. I couldn't show up empty-handed."

Karl glanced down at it.

His brow knit almost on reflex.

"Ma'am, the island hotel provides set meals for everyone."

"These strong-smelling things, just don't bring them onto the island."