The same stainless-steel bowl Marissa had used six years earlier.
“Trash?”
Ellie looked at it.
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then:
“No.”
Grant waited.
“I want it.”
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“It was his.”
Grant understood.
Not hers.
Not Marissa’s.
Otis’s.
They washed it.
Ellie planted mint in it because Otis had spent his entire life trying to eat mint from the garden.
The bowl sat on the kitchen windowsill.
Green leaves grew from it.
Grant never said anything symbolic.
He had learned to distrust adults who turned every child’s recovery into a metaphor.
Sometimes a bowl became a planter.
That was enough.
At fourteen, Ellie read the entire Holloway Foundation investigation.
Grant had not hidden it.
He simply stored it until she asked.
She sat in his study with a highlighter.
“You approved this?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t read it?”
“Not carefully.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Yes.”
“You were CEO.”
“Yes.”
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
She looked up.
“You don’t defend yourself much.”
“Experience.”
Ellie returned to the report.
“Did Marissa marry you for money?”
Grant had wondered thousands of times.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t.”
She frowned.
“That means maybe.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she loved you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why the foundation money?”
“People can love someone and still feel entitled to what that person has.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It is.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes.”
Ellie studied him.
“Even after?”
“For a while.”
“Do you now?”
Grant leaned back.
“I hope she has a good life.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“I don’t think I’m in love with her.”
“You think?”
“Feelings are badly audited.”
Ellie laughed.
“That sounds like you.”
At sixteen, Ellie removed most of Anna’s photographs from her bedroom.
Grant said nothing.
Then spent the night wondering whether Marissa had somehow won years later.
He hated himself for the thought.
Ellie noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The Mom face.”
He sighed.
“Do you want to take the pictures down?”
“They’re already down.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ellie looked toward the box.
“I remember her.”
Grant nodded.
“I don’t need fourteen pictures.”
“Okay.”
“She’s not disappearing.”
“No.”
Grant smiled.
“I know.”
Ellie stared.
“Do you?”