Chapter Thirty-Eight
Grant
I sucked my teeth as I scanned Kieran’s ridiculous housewarming gift registry.
“He’s fucking insane.”
“He’s not insane,” Kiyah replied dully.
“Then what would you call this?” I asked, shoving my phone toward her. She grimaced as she reviewed the many extravagant items.
“Bougie,” she answered matter-of-factly.
“Bougie my ass. Ki, there’s a fucking bread knife on here for $325. Three hundred and twenty-five fucking dollars.”
“Can you stop being so loud and ghetto in this store? You’re embarrassing me,” she chastised. “And it’s not a fucking bread knife, it’s an Amici 9-inch Precision Double-Serrated Bread Knife,” she said, spelling it out for me in a snobbish tone.
“You and your brother can go to Hell.”
She snickered and followed me out of the luxury home goods store.
“Slow down, Granny. You’re walking too fast.”
I ignored the ribbing meant to get under my skin and ventured to the next store on the list. It wasn’t until I entered Le Creuset that I realized I hadn’t heard my wife’s teasing in a hot minute. I turned, and she wasn’t there.
“For fuck’s sake,” I said, sighing before calling her and backtracking to our last location.
“This is Kiyah. Leave a message.”
I swore and broke out in a light jog as panic settled in.
The dam burst in therapy, and Kiyah went into great detail about her brief stay with Thaddeus Branson Jr. The man was sick in the head, and our therapist agreed that he displayed signs of narcissism and borderline personality disorder, and that Kiyah was lucky that she had gotten out when she did.
According to Kiyah, she hadn’t heard a peep from that demented son of a bitch, but his silence only ramped up my anxiety. Branson was a man driven by ego and control, and Kiyah single-handedly crushed his ego and reclaimed her power when she told him to kick rocks.
The tightness in my chest eased when I found my wife chowing down on a cinnamon and sugar and salted pretzel with a look of pure bliss on her face.
“Kiyah, what the hell? Why didn’t you answer my call? Better yet, why didn’t you tell me you wanted to stop?”
“I’m sorry, G, but I asked you to slow down. Then we passed the pretzel stand, and I had to make a U-turn. You want some?” she asked, offering me a bite.
“No, I don’t want a bite, and you shouldn’t either considering the lunch we had.”
“Hold my pretzel,” she said, shoving the salted one towards me. I accepted it and couldn’t resist taking a bite while she answered a phone call. One bite led to another, and eventually, I was left with the wrapper.
“Are you kidding me?” she growled.
“What’s wrong?”
She sliced her fingers in front of her throat to silence me, eventually putting some space between us to continue her conversation.
I wanted to interrupt her and figure out what the hell was going on, but I was working on not “bulldozing” as Kiyah so eloquently put it in therapy, and would allow her to come to me with her issues.
I hate marriage counseling, but it’s helping, I guess.
“All right, Burgess. Keep me posted,” she said before hanging up.
“I can sense that you’re going through something, and I want you to know that I’m here to lis—”
“Cut the shit, Grant.”
“Thank God,” I said, relieved I didn’t have to go through the therapy mumbo jumbo bullshit. “What’s going on?”
“Todd is suing me for breach of contract.”
“Okay. Let’s not lose our heads—we expected retaliation from him. How much?”
“Too much.”
“Too much, huh? Two weeks of marriage counseling and you haven’t retained a single thing our therapist said about communication.
We are supposed to be clear and concise with our words—leaving no room for misunderstanding,” I fussed while we stood between the pretzel stand and a spouting fountain that passerbyers tossed coins in.
“Ten times my yearly nanny package.”
“Okay, no big deal. How much are we talking here? $500?” She shook her head solemnly. “More?” She nodded, and my blood pressure rose as the debt climbed.
“He’s suing me for $3 million.”
Grant
“Grant, you’ve been quiet today,” Dr. Haynes mentioned.
“I don’t have much to say,” I responded through clenched teeth.
“The tightness in your jaw and the pinch of your forehead say otherwise.”
“Grant is pissed at me,” Kiyah volunteered.
“I can tell from how far he’s leaning away from you this session.”
I observed my posture briefly and realized I was distant from her. I corrected myself and reached for her hand, but she refused to give it to me.
“Grant, do you remember what we discussed about masking your emotions?” Dr. Haynes pointed out.
“Don’t force it—feel it,” I recited, retracting my hand.
“Have you expressed to Kiyah why you’re upset?”
“She knows.”
“Kiyah?”
She deeply inhaled and exhaled before launching into an explanation—Mr. Burgess’ call informing her that she was being sued for $3 million, and our differing reaction to the call.
“He became upset when I said, ‘At least I don’t have anything in my name.’”
“You think everything is a fucking joke.”
“I wasn’t joking. I was stating a fact. I’m not on any deeds, so he can’t put a lien on the houses, and my trust fund is in an irrevocable trust—”
“—that will no longer be legally protected from creditors when you turn thirty. None of this would’ve happened if you had just listened to me and stayed the hell away from that guy!”
The room fell silent for a few moments until our therapist intervened.
“It sounds like the root cause of your frustration is Kiyah going against your wishes and working for Mr. Branson, a topic we touch base on every session. Is there more to this, Grant?”
I hesitated, turning her question over in my mind.
“More to this? In what way?”
She scrolled through the notes on her tablet.
“Here we go. Last week, you mentioned the news speculation of Kiyah being the next First Lady of Texas and how that infuriated you. Is your frustration with Kiyah rooted in fear, disappointment, or jealousy?”
I sat back against the couch and stared at the painting of a mountainside on the wall behind Dr. Haynes.
It took me a minute, but finally I said, “All three—fear that something could’ve happened to her, disappointment that she ignored my warnings, but also that I ran her off, and jealousy seeing her with another man. ”
“Kiyah, do you have a response?”
“I’d feel the same way if I were in his shoes, but I also can’t keep apologizing. I fucked up, I feel stupid, and all I can do is focus on the fallout—”
“But it’s never you who has to deal with your fallout! That’s the fucking issue! When you fuck up—someone else pays! You just skirt through life without any accountability. I have to take this $3 million hit until you can access your trust!”
She turned on the couch and fixed me with her piercing eyes, and I knew she was about to give me the business.
“Or you can let me be accountable and handle it myself! I didn’t ask you for money, Grant! I’m not even attached to any financial accounts with you. But here you are being a fucking martyr over shit I didn’t ask or expect of you. I’m being sued, not you.”
“You’re my wife, and I’m responsible for you.”
“We are responsible for each other, and responsibility can come in different forms, like accountability. The judgment will come from my trust—end of story.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but this sounds like an ongoing habit of you ‘messing up’ Kiyah, and Grant intervening or coming to the rescue. When did this dynamic start?” Dr. Haynes questioned.
“Since my mother and I moved in.”
“Grant?”
I stared into space as I unlocked childhood memories I’d rather avoid.
“In our family, there was always this importance placed on me being the big brother and how I was responsible for my siblings. Kiyah came and… and for me… she became a sibling I had to be responsible for, but she needed protecting more than the others did. The next thing you know, I’m always fixing her messes or covering for her, or taking the blame for the crazy shit she did. ”
“Kiyah, do you agree with Grant?”
She darted a look at me before returning her attention to our therapist.
“Yes. When I was in trouble, Grant caught hell, too. I crashed my car in a drag race, and Grant got it worse than I did. Grant always presented himself as stoic and unbothered, and it was easy for the adults and the rest of us to forget that he’s not made of stone.
There was always this expectation that Grant had to be exceptional while the rest of us just had to exist.”
“Why do you think that is?” Dr. Haynes pressed.
“Generational curse, I guess. Dad was an only child, and Granddad was tough as fucking nails on him, and while Dad is somewhere between gentle parenting and foot up the ass, I think a little of that trickled down. I think Dad sees himself in Grant. He wants Grant to have everything he has—a rewarding career, a warm, big family, et cetera —but no one ever stops to ask what Grant wants. He’ll never admit it, but I don’t think his dream was to become an attorney and take over the law firm; his people-pleasing self couldn’t say no.
And because Grant was our ‘leader,’ so to speak, the rest of us fell in line. ”
“I wanted to go into environmental sciences,” I admitted suddenly.
Kiyah smiled at me coyly and reached for my hand. I didn’t hesitate to lace my fingers through hers.
“You’re the only person I know who will sit through a three-hour-long documentary about fungi,” she said teasingly.
“You were right there with me,” I insisted.
“It was boring as hell, but I just wanted to be with you.”
A smile ghosted my lips when I thought back to Kiyah loudly munching on popcorn beside me and complaining about the chocolate-covered raisins that fell to the bottom of the bucket. It was the most annoying thing ever, but her presence warmed me more than the theater’s throw blankets.
“I don’t want you to join the firm.”
“What?” she nearly shouted in disbelief. She glared at me as if I’d suddenly grown two heads. “You don’t want me to join? That’s all we’ve talked about since—since forever. I signed up for an LSAT refresher course!”
“You did?”
“I did. I wanted to apply to law school in the spring.”
“But it was never your dream to become a lawyer.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t see being a NASCAR pit crew member in my future.”
“Maybe not, but you always wanted to be a mechanic. I’m in too deep, but it’s not too late for you.”
“I don’t know,” she murmured.
“Why don’t you know?” Dr. Haynes asked. “Your husband is being supportive. What is holding you back?”
Kiyah shrugged, and I took over.
“I know our time is winding down, Dr. Haynes, but I want to make something clear before we leave today. I can’t speak for all of my siblings, but I always felt that I owed my dad.”
Kiyah gripped my hand.
“Owed him? For what?”
“Our childhood was nothing short of amazing. It was filled with loving and encouraging adults, laughter, mishaps, and unforgettable memories. Dad gave us everything; our family didn’t feel like a family—it felt like a community.
And don’t get me wrong, not everything was sunshine and rainbows all the time, but we got through it because we had each other.
So, if Dad wanted me to take over Baker Personal Injury and Law, then who was I to say no?
How could I when BPIL afforded us so much?
If it wasn’t going to be me, then who? Not Casey.
Not Kiyah. Maybe Daisy, and if you want to talk about someone our parents had zero expectations of, definitely not Kieran. ”
“He’s perfectly capable. He just thinks a little differently,” Kiyah said fondly.
“You are your mother’s daughter.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“At the end of the day, the buck stopped with me.”
“And how does all that tie into your relationship with Kiyah?”
“I’m not conditioned to feel anything other than responsible for someone or something. And you’re right, Ki. I can’t expect you to take accountability while simultaneously denying you the opportunity to do so. I apologize, but—”
“Saying ‘but’ negates your apology,” Dr. Haynes interjected.
“In that case, I take back my apology. I’m upset because Kiyah’s trust fund is substantially larger than the rest of ours.
Kierra, our mother, took the bulk of the money she won from Rory’s death and put it in the trust, along with some money from Dad—he believed in doing his part for all of his kids, and that slimy bastard doesn’t deserve a red cent of it.
I know nothing can be done other than fight it in court, but I want to get this off my chest now so it doesn’t come up later.
I want the issue to be dead in the water. ”
“Thank you, Grant, for telling me how you feel. I’ll admit the lawsuit stings a bit, but honestly, I feel this isn’t about the money. Todd’s just trying to gain access to me again. A lawsuit like this can be tied up in litigation for a while.”
“You’re probably right,” I admitted. “I wish you could get a restraining order against him, but he hasn’t met that threshold, or at least we can’t prove that he has.”
Dr. Haynes nodded.
“My advice to both of you is to stay vigilant and keep your eyes open. Maybe even hire private security for a little while.”
“I was considering it. Especially after Daisy and Nori’s attack,” I confessed.
“I’m all for it,” Kiyah agreed.
“Good. Lean on each other for support and be kind to one another. Same time next week?”
“Same time next week,” we agreed.
* * *
“Do you feel better?” Kiyah asked as I assisted her into the truck, setting her handbag onto her lap.
“Depends on what your definition of better is.”
“Like you don’t want to wrap your hands around my neck and choke me.”
I smirked and leaned into the truck. “There will never be a day when I won’t desire to choke you,” I whispered.
“You promise?” she asked with a teasing tilt of her lips.
I checked my watch. “We have some time to kill before we convene at the Powells’ for dinner. I can—”
I stopped speaking when movement from across the street caught my attention. A black sedan with pitch-black tint crawled by, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood.
“Grant?”
“What’s up?” I asked, temporarily distracted.
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything will be fine,” I replied, closing her door. I cursed when I scanned the street and the car had vanished. I didn’t get a chance to grab the license plate. Our therapist’s words returned.
Stay vigilant and keep your eyes open.