After my daughter-in-law gave birth, every request to see my grandson ended the same way. He was still sensitive. Maybe next week. Two months of that, and the clothes I had folded were still in a bag by my door. I drove over without calling. If he was truly too fragile for a visit, I would leave the bag and go.

She opened the door with the baby on her hip. My heart dropped, then kept dropping. He was not fragile. He was round, pink, and laughing at a spoon someone was waving behind her. The living room was full. My son’s cousins. Her mother. A half-eaten cake on the table and a banner that said two months. They had been having people over. They had simply not been having me.

She saw my face and stepped into the hall, pulling the door mostly shut. She said the house got overwhelming and they had been protecting their routine. I looked past her shoulder. My son was on the couch, already standing, already guilty. He did not say the baby was sensitive. He said they had argued about money I had offered for the crib, and she had decided a visit would turn into a lecture. The excuse had been easier than the truth.

I set the clothes on the step. I did not go inside. I told my son I would see my grandson when the invitation was real, not when a room full of relatives had already proved the rule was only for me. He called that night. The following Saturday I held the baby in my own kitchen, no banner, no audience. The two months were not about his health. They were about a door someone had chosen to keep shut.