I woke at three in the morning because I heard Grant’s footsteps in dreams.
I entered the mansion kitchen and remembered Mavis criticizing the way I folded napkins.
The sound of a phone vibrating facedown made my chest tighten.
At board meetings, I sometimes waited for a man to explain my own company back to me.
Victory did not erase conditioning.
I began therapy.
Not because Grant’s attorneys called me unstable.
Because I wanted to understand why I remained inside a marriage that required me to disappear.
My therapist asked:
“What did hiding your identity protect?”
“At first, me.”
“And later?”
I thought about the emergency loans.
The secret approvals.
The dinners where I allowed Grant to describe me as uninformed.
“Later, it protected him.”
“From what?”
“The truth about himself.”
That was the answer I had avoided.
Grant might have treated me differently if he knew my wealth.
