Chapter 14 - Eric’s Desperation
Three days after the gala, my phone rang while I was at my desk at Hanover Medical Center. It was an unknown cell number, but when I answered, a desperate, broken voice came across the line.
“Grant… it’s Eric.”
I leaned back in my executive chair, spinning my pen between my fingers. “Eric. How did you get this number?”
“Allison gave it to me,” he choked out, sounding smaller and more defeated than I had ever heard him. “Grant, I need help. I’m sitting in my car behind a gas station off Interstate 80. My credit cards are maxed out, my car is about to get repossessed, and I don’t even have enough cash for a motel room tonight. Mom refuses to answer my calls. Can… can you wire me some money? Just a few thousand to get back on my feet?”
For a long moment, there was complete silence on my end of the line.
Growing up, Eric had never asked for anything—he had merely expected it. He was the golden child, the sun around whom my parents’ entire universe revolved. Whenever he stumbled, my parents rushed in with cash, excuses, and rescue packages, while I was told to pull myself up by my bootstraps.
Now, the golden child had hit reality, and there was no safety net left.
“Eric,” I said calmly, my voice steady and devoid of malice. “I’m not going to give you money.”
“Grant, please! I’m your brother!” he sobbed over the line. “You have a great job now! You have money! What kind of monster refuses to help family when they’re drowning?”
“The kind of monster who sat at an empty plate on Christmas day while you laughed and watched,” I replied quietly. “You spent your entire life mocking me, taking my accomplishments for granted, and treating Maisie like dirt because Mother told you to. I’m not going to enable you the way Mother did, Eric.”
“So you’re just going to leave me out here to rot?” he screamed, his voice cracking with panic.
May you like
“No, Eric. I’m going to give you the exact same advice Mother gave me when I was struggling twenty years ago,” I said evenly. “Responsibility builds character. Go get a job. Earn your own way. You might actually learn something.”
I hung up the phone, placed it face down on my desk, and exhaled a long, cleansing breath. The cycle was finally, permanently broken.
