Grant had not always been this distant.
Before Evan was born, he had been a man who laughed easily, who planned family vacations months in advance, who insisted on cooking Sunday breakfast even when he burned the pancakes.
Then his wife died during childbirth.
The hospital called it complications. Doctors spoke in soft voices and careful words. None of it mattered. The moment Grant held his newborn son while staring at the empty hospital bed beside him, something inside him closed.
Evan looked exactly like his mother.
The same eyes. The same smile.
Every time Grant looked at him, the grief returned like a knife twisting slowly in his chest.
So Grant did what many people with money and pain often do.
He buried himself in work.
He flew across the country for meetings. He stayed in hotels more nights than he stayed at home. He told himself he was providing for his son, even if he could not face raising him.
And when doctors told him that Evan had been born with severe hearing loss, Grant accepted the diagnosis without question.
Part of him believed it.
Another part of him simply did not have the strength to question anything.
