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Grant looks at me, he smiles sadly as he shakes his head. “I can’t. I thought I could but I can’t.”
It shouldn’t hurt so much, I knew this was coming. Except it feels as if he’s ripped my heart out of my chest and tossed it into the canal he’s staring at. Clenching my jaw against the screams I want to let loose I nod. “Okay.” I whisper, “I understand.”
“Bullshit, you don’t understand a fucking thing!” He’s shaking in his anger, for a split second I freeze in fear of him. He sees it and deflates.
“You really don’t. I thought you could but I was wrong. I’ll go back with Marshall today. You stay here with Robin then when you figure out what it is you want, call me, and let me know.” Grant’s walking away. I watch him run a hand through his hair then the world goes black.
I come to with a light shining into my eyes. A very portly older gentleman is speaking Italian with censure at Grant. Grant is nodding, taking the verbal slaps with remorse. Then it all comes back with a force that feels crushing. Pushing the man away, I try to sit up. I need to get out of here, away from Grant, now. “I’m fine, go away.”
The man frowns at Grant before leaving me alone. He says something to Grant, before he leaves the bedroom. I sit up to find Grant has wrapped me up in a robe. I’m sliding into a skirt when Grant comes back to the room. “I’d like you to get checked out at the local hospital. Once your dressed let me know and we’ll go.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you would like and I’m not going anywhere with you. Leave. You said you were leaving, fucking go already. I never believed you would make it this far, don’t prove me wrong now.”
My ring catches the light and seeing it is another punch to the gut. “Take this with you, maybe the next woman you buy will take it.” I tear the ring off and throw it across to where he is standing in the doorway. It hits him in the chest before falling at his feet.
His hands ball into fists, “Don’t you fucking go putting your shit on me. I did everything for you. I’ve turned my life inside out, I’ve turned myself inside out. I’ve gone back on promises I made to myself for you, everything wasn’t enough.”
“You stopped hiding behind your keyboard as much for yourself as me, big fucking deal.”
“The big fucking deal was marrying you when I swore I would never marry anyone, never take that chance. I didn’t realize I was falling in love with you but I knew something was happening, something I should have stopped but I couldn’t.”
The look of torture on his face has me fighting back tears. “What the hell are you talking about, chance? What chance were you taking? I would have signed a prenup if you wanted to.”
“That I would do to you what my father did to my mother. Maybe it’s all better this way.”
“What did your father do to your mother?” He shakes his head, he turns to leave. “If you walk out that door and stop talking, you’ll never see me again. I mean it, me or the baby. I’ll go to Frank. He’ll help me disappear. I’m sick of doing all the talking. Right now talk, damn it.” Even though I told him to leave, told him I’d run and hide the idea of never seeing him again terrifies me. I’m grasping at any reason to keep him from walking out.
“My mother committed suicide because my father cared more about his work than he did her. When I figured out I cared more about getting back to work than the women who slept in my bed one after the other, I promised myself I would never get married. I didn’t want to do the same thing to a woman as my father had done to my mother. I refused to even take the chance, until you.”
The look on his face has me breathing deeply trying not to cry for him. He shakes his head, running his hand through his hair. “Keep talking, there’s more to it than that.”
“My dad treated my mom like a servant he had to put up with. He was an engineer for an aerospace company. His life was his work, it was the only thing he cared about. My mom and I were afterthoughts, annoyances, inconvenient intrusions to his work. Sound like anyone you know?
“At the time, all I knew was I hated the way he ignored my mom when she tried so damned hard to get his attention. She twisted herself into something I don’t think she even recognized.
“When I was younger he was surprised and pleased by my intelligence, my mom quit teaching to focus on me to please him. She loved teaching and she was a really great teacher. At her funeral there were maybe thirty or forty of her former students there and they were sadder about her death than my father.
“By the time I was nine though, he had lost interest again and she started having affairs. At first she was careful, but not really, she wanted to be caught. Then when she was caught and he really didn’t care she became depressed. She would leave for days, then weeks.
I know sometimes it was with other men, but she also spent time with her sister in Oregon. I started to hate her then. I was angry at the way she kept leaving. Then I got even angrier that she kept coming back.”
Hearing the confusion and pain he went through, I hate his mother for what she put him through. “Why did she keep coming back?”
“Because she loved him.”
“Did she ever take you with her?”
“No.”
“Why not?” I shudder at the idea of Grant being left alone with a father who barely remembered he was there for weeks at a time.
“I don’t know. I don’t think she knew. By the time I was fourteen I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her I wanted to take the entrance exam for MIT and go the next year. She lost it completely, told me I couldn’t go because then she would be alone. Considering the way she kept leaving, I was surprised by her reaction. I kind of thought I was a part of the reason she kept coming back, and if I left she would feel free to leave and stay gone.”
“You stayed for her.” My heart aches for him.
“Yeah, for a while after, she was more like her old self. But gradually it started all over again. When I turned sixteen and sold my first program I felt I’d bought my way out. I talked to my father instead of my mother and he was more than happy to let me go to MIT.
“He assured me the money I’d received for the sale of the program was mine to spend as I wanted. He gave me a debit card then moved the money from savings to checking. It was all on me to get myself to MIT, then he told me to close the door on my way out of his office.
