Chapter 17 - Grant Without an Audience
Grant requested a meeting with Tyler through family counsel.
Tyler refused twice.
The third time, Marianne encouraged him to consider it.
“Not for your father,” she said. “For you.”
They met in a therapist's office.
Tyler later told Laura only part of what happened.
The rest belonged to him.
Grant arrived without a lawyer.
He looked thinner.
Mercer Facilities had filed for restructuring after losing three municipal contracts.
He blamed the press.
Then the district.
Then Leonard Pike.
Tyler listened.
Finally he asked, “Are you sorry?”
Grant stopped.
“For what?”
Tyler almost walked out.
Grant recovered.
“I am sorry you were put in that position.”
“You put me there.”
“I asked you to remove a tag.”
“And fix a shelf.”
“I didn't know it would fall.”
“You knew it wasn't safe.”
Grant's face hardened.
“Do you think I wanted you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then stop acting like I tried to kill you.”
Tyler stared at him.
“That isn't what I said.”
Grant looked away.
For the first time, Tyler recognized something Laura had already seen.
His father argued against accusations nobody had made because those were easier to defeat than the truth.
Tyler tried again.
“Why did you tell me Ms. Bennett was the enemy?”
Grant's answer came slowly.
“Because if she sued, everything would come apart.”
“It did anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Because she talked?”
Grant opened his mouth.
Tyler finished.
“Or because you lied?”
Grant's face collapsed for one second.
Then rebuilt itself.
“You think the world rewards honesty?”
“No.”
“Then what have you learned from all this?”
Tyler thought of Ava.
Mateo.
Ruiz.
Laura standing beside a wheelchair she could have abandoned for a settlement.
“That lying costs more.”
Grant laughed bitterly.
“You sound like her.”
Tyler stood.
“That's not an insult.”
Grant stared.
Tyler walked toward the door.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
Behind him, Grant said, “I am sorry.”
Tyler turned.
Grant's face was rigid.
“For what?” Tyler asked.
The question mattered.
Grant struggled.
“For making you lie.”
Tyler waited.
“For sending you into that room.”
Tyler kept waiting.
Grant closed his eyes.
“For what happened to Ms. Bennett.”
Still not enough.
Tyler said nothing.
Grant finally whispered, “For teaching you that fear was something to be ashamed of.”
Tyler's chest tightened.
There it was.
Not everything.
But something true.
He sat down again.
They talked for twenty more minutes.
Tyler did not forgive him.
Grant did not transform.
When the session ended, they left separately.
That evening Tyler texted Laura.
He apologized.
Laura replied:
For what now?
He wrote:
Nothing. Habit.
She laughed aloud.
Then another message arrived.
I think my dad finally understands one thing.
What?
That I'm not coming back to who I was.
Laura looked at the words for a long time.
May you like
Neither was she.
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