CHAPTER 5: Grant Hears His Son

Grant crossed the ballroom slowly because every step made him remember something he had ignored.
Henry waiting at the top of the stairs for Evelyn, not Catherine. Henry asking whether Evelyn was coming on vacation. Henry falling silent whenever Catherine entered a room too quickly. Henry calling Grant's office and asking when he would be home, then hanging up before saying why.
He had mistaken all of it for childhood preference.
He had mistaken absence for busyness.
Now his son stood in front of a hundred guests, sobbing into the arms of a woman Grant had thanked with holiday envelopes and never once asked how she was surviving his house.
Catherine turned before he reached them.
"Grant, handle this. He is being dramatic."
Grant looked at Henry first.
The boy's face was pressed against Evelyn's shoulder, but his eyes found his father's over the gray fabric.
There was no drama there.
Only relief mixed with terror.
Grant had negotiated impossible mergers with calmer nerves than he felt in that moment. He suddenly understood that fatherhood had not been stolen from him in a single scene. He had surrendered pieces of it every time he accepted Catherine's version of the house without looking for his son's.
Grant's voice dropped.
"Henry, did you call Evelyn Mommy?"
Henry nodded once.
Catherine exhaled like the nod offended her more than the tears.
Grant asked, "Why?"
Henry's answer was small enough to break the room.
"Because she comes when I cry."