Ellie was scheduled to appear too.
Marissa told him filming went beautifully.
“What happened?”
Ellie rubbed one thumb around the rim of the bowl.
“She wanted me to say something.”
“What?”
The little girl looked ashamed.
Grant hated that before she even answered.
“She said, ‘My mom Marissa and I are helping kids.’”
His expression changed.
“What did you say?”
“I said she’s not my mom.”
Grant exhaled slowly.
“And then?”
“She said say it for the camera.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Ellie looked up, surprised.
Grant touched her cheek.
“You do not have to call anyone Mom if you don’t want to.”
“But she cried.”
“When?”
“After.”
“Marissa cried?”
Ellie nodded.
“She said I embarrassed her.”
Grant stared.
“What happened after that?”
“She made them stop filming.”
“Who was there?”
“Mr. Trent.”
The name meant something.
Michael Trent.
A family consultant Marissa had recommended last year.
Grant had met him twice.
He remembered expensive glasses, a perfect gray suit, and a vocabulary built almost entirely from words like alignment, integration, and transition.
Grant never liked him.
Marissa said that was because Grant resisted emotional work.
“What did Mr. Trent do?”
“He asked me if I was mad because Mom died.”
Grant’s hand tightened.
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
Ellie thought.
“Then yes.”
“That’s okay.”
“He said maybe I’m mad at Marissa because she gets to stay.”
Grant’s throat tightened.
“And?”
“I said I don’t like when she changes Mom things.”
“What happened?”
“Marissa said I was doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Making everything about Mom.”
Grant looked away.
Anna had been dead three years.
For much of the first year after her death, Ellie rarely spoke about her.
She was four.
The loss was too large and too abstract.
At five, the questions began.
At six, memories returned in fragments.
A song.
A smell.
A particular pancake shape.
A red scarf.
Grant encouraged it.
At least he believed he had.
But work returned too.
Holloway Medical Technologies went public.
The foundation expanded nationally.
Grant remarried.
Life filled every empty space because empty spaces hurt.
Perhaps while he was moving forward, his daughter had been trying to preserve enough of the past to understand herself.
“Did Marissa tell you the food bowl was punishment for the video?”
Ellie nodded.
“She said I was acting like Otis.”
Grant froze.
“What?”
“She said Otis begs when he doesn’t get what he wants.”
Ellie looked toward the empty bowl.
“She said I keep begging for Mom stuff.”
Grant’s vision blurred.
“She said if I want to act like a pet, I can eat like one.”
He stared at his daughter.
There were moments in life when anger felt hot.
Explosive.
Immediate.
This was not that.
This anger was cold.
Organized.
It sharpened every detail.
The bowl.
The pajamas.
The tear tracks.
The fact Ellie had been left alone long enough for her face to dry and redden.
Grant asked the next question carefully.