Your Daddy Ditched Me Again, she thought. And for the first time, the sentence didn't end with a question mark. It ended with a period.

Then the GPS rebooted with a soft chime.

Lena slammed her palm against the dashboard, silencing the robotic chirp. The nickname she’d programmed as a joke six years ago—back when “Daddy” was an endearment, not an accusation—now felt like a hot needle under her skin.

Lena turned off the phone.

This was the third time. The first, she’d cried. The second, she’d screamed. Now, she just felt the familiar, hollow thud of a pattern completing itself. Your Daddy Ditched Me Again.