Chapter 12 - THE CONVERSATION GRANT COULD NO LONGER CONTROL
The next time I saw Grant was in a structured meeting with attorneys present.
I was thirty-seven weeks pregnant.
He looked thinner.
For one stupid second, I wanted to ask whether he was eating.
Marriage did not switch off because someone hurt you.
That was another truth nobody prepared me for.
Grant looked at my stomach.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“What are you naming her?”
“That isn’t why we’re here.”
Pain crossed his face.
Then anger covered it.
“You don’t get to erase me.”
I leaned back.
“I’m not.”
“You moved out.”
“You trapped me in the ground.”
“I lost control.”
“You spent months preparing to call me unstable.”
His attorney shifted slightly.
Grant stared at me.
“My lawyer told me to document things.”
“In January?”
He said nothing.
“What had I done in January?”
“You were talking about Kentucky.”
“I said Megan could help after delivery.”
“You know how that sounded.”
“To who?”
He looked away.
“Marlene?”
His face hardened.
“Leave my mother out of this.”
Claire, seated beside her own attorney because of the statement she had signed, gave a quiet laugh.
Grant turned toward her.
“You too?”
Claire’s voice was steady.
“You used me.”
“I asked you to tell the truth.”
“You asked me to watch her.”
“Because I was scared.”
I interrupted.
“Of what?”
Grant looked at me.
“That you’d leave.”
“Why?”
“Because you always hated how close my family is.”
“No. Why did that become a custody plan before I threatened to leave?”
His jaw tightened.
“I wanted options.”
“For what?”
He pushed his chair back an inch.
“For my daughter.”
“She didn’t exist to you except as leverage.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What did you want, Grant?”
“My family.”
“What did you want from your mother?”
His face changed.
Claire looked at him.
Grant said nothing.
I answered for him.
“Forty thousand dollars.”
His attorney quietly told him not to respond.
But his silence was enough emotionally, if not legally.
I continued.
“You told Marlene I was planning to take the baby to Kentucky because she wanted the baby close. You told Claire I was unstable because you needed someone to confirm it. You tracked my moods because your first lie needed evidence. Then when I actually wanted to leave because you were controlling me, you treated that as proof you had been right.”
Grant leaned forward.
“I never planned for any of this to happen.”
“The garden?”
“No.”
“The lock?”
His eyes dropped.
“The phone checks?”
No answer.
“The threats about judges?”
“Elena—”
“What were you protecting?”
He looked at me.
For once, I saw the answer before he said it.
Not the baby.
Not even his marriage.
“The idea that I could keep everybody,” he whispered.
His mother.
His sister.
His daughter.
Me.
His reputation as the dependable son who never let the Mercer family break apart.
“You wanted everybody,” I said.
“But you didn’t want any of us to be allowed to leave.”
Grant’s eyes filled.
That was the closest he came to admitting what he had done.
May you like
It was not enough.
And for once, I did not need it to be.
