I watched the news from my hospital bed with the volume low.
The anchor said the words carefully: domestic violence allegations, financial misconduct, hidden recordings, ongoing investigation.
Then they showed footage from a gala three months earlier. Grant at a podium, one hand over his heart.
“My wife Clara is the moral compass of our family,” he said in the clip. “She reminds me daily that kindness is not weakness.”
In the hospital room, Detective Voss muttered, “God.”
I did not laugh.
Something inside me was too tired for laughter.
“You built this while he was hurting you?” she asked.
I looked at the television.
“No,” I said. “I built it because he was hurting me.”
The difference mattered.
The next two days passed in fragments.
Doctors came and went. Nurses changed bandages. Police took statements. Federal agents arrived with careful questions and expensive shoes. I told the story so many times that it began to feel less like memory and more like testimony.
