Chapter 10 - THE WORST THING GRANT LEARNED FROM HIS OWN CHILDHOOD
Family therapy eventually reached Grant’s childhood.
The major twist was uncomfortable for Evelyn because it implicated her.
Grant’s father, Richard, had been harsh.
Not physically violent.
Emotionally unforgiving.
If Grant cried after losing a baseball game, Richard mocked him.
If he wanted Evelyn during conflict, Richard accused her of babying him.
Evelyn repeatedly intervened.
Sometimes Richard retaliated by withdrawing.
He would refuse to speak to Grant for hours.
Sometimes days.
Grant learned two lessons at once.
From his father:
Needing another person made you weak.
From his mother:
If you showed enough distress, someone would rescue you.
He grew to hate both roles.
Weak child.
Rescuing parent.
As an adult, he built a philosophy around preventing dependency.
He told himself Maisie would be stronger.
No emotional “triangulation.”
No running to Grandma.
No attachment to nannies stronger than parental authority.
The language sounded almost clinical.
Underneath it lived an old terrified boy who remembered his father saying:
Stop running to your mother.
Evelyn cried when she finally connected the phrase.
Grant had said almost the same thing to Maisie.
Maybe next time you’ll stop running to Grandma.
Not because he consciously wanted to become Richard.
Because unresolved family patterns rarely announced themselves before repeating.
But explanation was not absolution.
Grant had choices Richard never had.
Therapy.
Books.
A wife who challenged him.
A nanny who warned him.
A mother still alive and willing to talk.
He rejected each one when it threatened his authority.
That distinction mattered.
Grant was not doomed by childhood.
He had used childhood to justify adulthood.
When the therapist told him that, Grant became furious.
Then quiet.
May you like
For the first time, he could no longer frame himself as the parent protecting Maisie from other people’s influence.
He was the influence everyone was now protecting her from.
