Chapter 5 - The Question Grant Couldn’t Answer
I didn’t wake Grant immediately.
Maybe I should have.
Instead, I spent half the night sitting on my couch with Vanessa’s message glowing on my phone.
Ask Grant what he did.
At six thirty, I heard footsteps upstairs.
Grant came into the kitchen.
He had changed into sweatpants and an old college sweatshirt I kept in the guest room.
He looked terrible.
“Coffee?”
He nodded.
I poured a cup.
Then placed my phone on the table.
“Vanessa texted me.”
His hand stopped halfway toward the mug.
That reaction told me everything.
“There is something.”
Grant closed his eyes.
“Mom.”
“What did you do?”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“I don’t think anything yet.”
He sat.
For several seconds he stared into his coffee.
Then he said, “I tried to postpone the wedding.”
My eyebrows lifted.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
The same week I bought the navy dress.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t tell anybody.”
“What happened?”
Grant rubbed his hands together.
“I told Vanessa I felt like we were fighting too much. I suggested counseling and maybe moving the wedding six months.”
“And?”
“She panicked.”
That word bothered me.
“How?”
“She cried. Then she got angry.”
Grant paused.
“She told me postponing would humiliate her.”
“So you changed your mind.”
“Not immediately.”
He looked at me.
“I left.”
“Left where?”
“Our apartment.”
My mouth fell open.
“For two nights.”
“Where were you?”
“Daniel’s.”
The college friend who hadn’t been invited to the wedding.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because I knew what you’d say.”
“What?”
“That if I wasn’t sure, I shouldn’t marry her.”
I didn’t deny it.
Grant nodded.
“Exactly.”
“What made you go back?”
He was quiet.
“Vanessa came to Daniel’s.”
“And?”
“She apologized.”
I waited.
“She said she knew she’d been controlling.”
My heart sank.
“She promised counseling after the wedding.”
“After?”
“She said cancelling everything would create more stress and we should get through the ceremony first.”
Grant gave a bitter laugh.
“I wanted to believe her.”
“Is that what Vanessa meant when she said to ask what you did?”
“No.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“There’s more?”
He nodded.
“While I was at Daniel’s, I texted an attorney.”
I stared.
“About what?”
“A prenuptial agreement.”
That surprised me.
Grant had never mentioned one.
“Why?”
“Because of the house.”
“What house?”
His face changed.
And suddenly I knew we were reaching the real problem.
Vanessa’s grandmother had died the previous year.
According to Vanessa, Diane was inheriting several properties.
One was the Florida vacation home.
Vanessa had told Grant that after marriage they might be given partial ownership.
“In exchange for what?”
“That’s what worried me.”
Grant pulled out his phone.
He found a photograph of a document.
“Vanessa showed me this.”
I read it.
A property agreement.
Complex legal language.
But one sentence stood out.
Any renovations or mortgage payments made by Grant after marriage could be treated as voluntary contributions unless ownership was formally transferred.
“Why would you pay toward a house you don’t own?”
“Exactly.”
Grant said he wanted independent legal advice.
Vanessa accused him of distrusting her family.
That argument was what drove him to Daniel’s.
“So you contacted an attorney.”
“Yes.”
“And Vanessa found out?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She checked my laptop.”
Of course she had.
“She saw the email and thought I was secretly preparing to divorce her before we were even married.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
He looked hurt.
“I just wanted somebody to explain what I was signing.”
That was not wrongdoing.
But then Grant said,
“There was something else in the email.”
I waited.
“I told the attorney I was thinking of postponing the wedding.”
There it was.
Vanessa hadn’t been completely irrational to feel betrayed.
Grant had been planning something without telling her.
But fear had driven the secrecy.
“What did Vanessa do?”
“She sent screenshots to her mom.”
I sighed.
“Of course.”
“And after that, everything got worse.”
Diane started calling more often.
Vanessa became obsessed with schedules.
Wedding decisions became nonnegotiable.
“She kept saying I’d already embarrassed her enough.”
Grant stared at his coffee.
“And I started feeling like I owed her the wedding.”
That sentence was devastating.
Nobody should marry because they feel indebted to the ceremony.
“Grant, you should have told her how bad things had gotten.”
“I tried.”
“But?”
“She cried.”
He laughed quietly.
“That sounds terrible when I say it.”
“No.”
“She’d say I was abandoning her when she needed me.”
“And you stayed.”
“Yes.”
I reached for his hand.
“You made mistakes too.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
“You avoided conversations.”
“Yes.”
“You let resentment build.”
“Yes.”
“And yesterday you exposed private problems in front of one hundred people.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“That doesn’t mean you should have married her.”
Grant looked at me.
Both things could be true.
Vanessa’s behavior had been controlling.
Grant’s response had been avoidance.
Neither fact erased the other.
At nine, Grant called the attorney whose email Vanessa had discovered.
Her name was Laura Mendes.
She agreed to meet us that afternoon.
Before we left, Grant received another message.
From Vanessa.
Not angry this time.
Can we please talk without our mothers?
Grant stared at it.
I said nothing.
This had to be his decision.
He finally typed:
Not today. I need time.
Vanessa replied almost immediately.
You don’t have time.
Then another message.
There’s something you still don’t know about the money.
Grant looked at me.
A third message arrived.
My mother didn’t transfer it. I did.
Grant’s face went white.
Then came the message that changed the entire situation.
And I transferred it because I found out what YOUR mother was planning.
Grant slowly turned toward me.
For the first time since the wedding, suspicion appeared in his eyes.
“Mom?”
I felt offended.
Then frightened.
Because I honestly had no idea what Vanessa was talking about.
But whatever she claimed I had done was serious enough that she had moved eighteen thousand dollars hours before her wedding.
And by noon, Vanessa had sent Grant proof.
May you like
Proof that included my name.
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