A girl called Priya's dad promised to come to her thing — the match, the show, the moment she'd been looking forward to for weeks. She told her friends he'd be there. She kept looking for his face in the crowd. He never came. Work, he said later. Something came up. "I'll make it up to you." It's not the first time. Each "I'll make it up to you" means a little less than the last. Priya is learning to expect the empty seat, to stop looking for the face that isn't there. She loves her dad. She's also quietly building a wall, brick by broken promise, to stop the disappointment from reaching her.