Chapter 11 - THE LIE GRANT CHOSE
Grant followed me into the hospital parking garage.
“Mara, stop.”
I kept walking.
He caught up beside my car.
“I was afraid you would pull Liam out of everything he loved.”
“You mean everything you loved watching him do.”
“He loved hockey.”
“He loved being alive.”
Grant flinched.
I turned toward him.
“For three years, you let me believe I killed our son by going to work.”
“I never said you killed him.”
“You didn’t have to. You told everyone grief destroyed me. You said I was obsessed with finding a mistake because I couldn’t accept my own guilt.”
“I was grieving too.”
“You were protecting yourself.”
His face twisted.
“I woke up every day knowing I should have told you.”
“And then you went to work. You went to dinner. You slept with Brooke. You built another family.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Fair?”
My voice echoed through the concrete garage.
“You had information that could have saved Liam’s life. When he died, you watched me tear myself apart because the truth would make you look like a coward.”
Grant pressed both fists against his eyes.
“My mother said the mutation didn’t mean he would get sick.”
“Your mother isn’t a doctor.”
“She raised me to believe weakness was a choice.”
“That explains you. It does not excuse you.”
He lowered his hands.
“Brooke can’t know all of this.”
“She has a daughter carrying the same mutation.”
“She’ll take Maisie and leave.”
“That may be the first responsible decision anyone in your family has made.”
Grant stepped closer.
“You hate me.”
“I don’t have enough room left in my life to hate you.”
His expression collapsed.
For years, I had imagined confronting him and feeling powerful.
Instead, I felt tired.
“I loved you,” I said. “Even after the affair, some part of me believed we were two broken people who failed each other after an impossible loss.”
“We were.”
“No. I was broken. You were hiding evidence.”
A car turned into the garage.
Grant stepped away.
Before I opened my door, he said, “My mother was with Liam when he died. You should ask what happened before she called 911.”
I stopped.
Grant looked terrified of his own words.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just told me to ask.”
“She changed her story.”
“What story?”
Grant glanced toward the hospital entrance.
“At first, she said he woke up and complained that the room was spinning.”
My heart began pounding.
May you like
“What did she say later?”
“That he never woke up at all.”
