DR. Ginger Calloway next wanted to evaluate how the Hayes children reacted when a parent left and came back. At the child trauma center, they set up the scenario. First the parent played with the child in a playroom. Then, a stranger went in and talked to the parent and child together for about two minutes. At that point, the parent left, but returned again in two to five minutes. Then the stranger left and parent and child played together again. After that, the child was left alone for a few minutes before the parent came back in again.
When Laura Ackerson arrived with the boys, Gentle was asleep. He was left in Heidi Schumacher’s care in the waiting room while Laura and little Grant went into the playroom. Mother and son interacted well together. When Laura left the room, little Grant kept asking, “Where’s Mommy?” When she returned, he gave a sigh of pleasure.
When Gentle first woke up in that strange place, he screamed. When he was left with the stranger in the playroom, he seemed unsure of what to do. He went to the door and rested his head on it. Then, he started to wail and couldn’t be comforted by the stranger. Because of his distress, Laura was brought back in right away. Laura easily calmed him and seemed attuned to his needs.
On a later day, Grant Hayes repeated the scenario. When his father returned to the room after an absence, little Grant showed no reaction. He continued playing with the cars and then noticed that his dad was getting blocks out of a box. He said, “Put more, Daddy.”
Grant said, “More what?”
“More blocks.”
The session with Gentle started playfully, with Grant mimicking Gentle. The boy then explored the room and had little interaction with his father. When Grant said his name, Gentle ignored him. Grant urged him to come look at one toy after another. Gentle would look at the toys then take them to another part of the room and play by himself. When the stranger came into the room, Gentle sat down by his dad’s feet.
When Grant left the room, Gentle cried. But when his father returned, they did not have a reunion. Grant immediately went to the toys for a distraction. When he left the boy alone, Gentle whimpered. With his father gone, Gentle continued to stand near the door, making those pitiful noises. The stranger came in and was able to soothe him for a little bit. When Gentle’s whimpering began anew, the stranger tried to engage his interest in toys. When Grant came back into the room, Gentle tried to escape.
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ON the first day of March 2011, Laura chastised Grant via a string of text messages asking him to demonstrate a modicum of respect for her phone time with the boys.
Grant asked what she wanted him to do and Laura wrote: “Something other than what you are now. The few times that your group have called here, I have kept it quiet and non-distracting. Not only is it rude to constantly have the TV on when I’m trying to talk with Grant and Gentle, but it makes you guys look bad to anyone who hears the recording of the call. Could you please give it a rest and work with me here? WE have two children. Not you. WE. I will always be their mom and its best if they have a healthy relationship with me. Could you encourage that please?”
Laura did not seem to blame Amanda for these problems. A few days after her exchange with Grant, she sent Amanda a thank-you note expressing appreciation for all that Amanda did in the day-to-day caring for the children. Although she didn’t mention it in the correspondence, Amanda’s presence in the household made Laura feel more comfortable than she would have if the boys were in Grant’s care alone.
—
LATER that month, at HealtHabit, Laura helped a customer named Chevon Mathes, an African-American woman with a full, attractive smile, broad face, high cheekbones and a soft voice. The two women chatted, and they discovered that they shared a conceptual vision. Both independently wanted to start an advertising company selling noncompeting ads on placemats or menus at diners and cafés. Chevon had business sense and a sales instinct and Laura had graphic design skills. It was like two halves of a whole. They exchanged phone numbers that day. Later they talked on the phone and met face-to-face, both growing more excited about the possibility with each encounter. They shaped their dreams into a start-up called Fork & Spoon and started looking for customers. In addition to her job at the shop, Laura continued with her freelance work as GoFish Graphic Designs while she worked on building a new business with Chevon.
Laura and Chevon had two types of sales calls to make. One group was the restaurant owners whom they had to solicit to use the free menus or placemats with ads for other businesses. The others were those companies buying the ads to make the freebies possible. Soon, Laura quit her part-time job at the health food store. Their business started in Kinston in March and by the time July 2011 arrived, they’d expanded to Wilson, with Laura making pitches there and in Goldsboro while Chevon tried to get sales by telephone since she did not own a car.
Chevon spent time working with Laura in her two-bedroom apartment and soon became aware of the ongoing custody battle and Laura’s conflicts with Grant.
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MEANWHILE, back in March, Grant had filed a social-services complaint against Laura because of bruises on the boys. The caseworker was confused about why Grant also told him that Laura had sexually transmitted diseases, since it was not relevant to his original allegations. The agency investigated and discharged the case as groundless.
Laura assumed that Grant had filed the report in the first place because the evaluation was not going as he’d hoped. Laura told her lawyer, John Sargeant, that she was afraid that Grant’s actions indicated he was getting desperate, and she was concerned he might try to run off with the children or do something bad to her. Sargeant urged Laura not to take any unnecessary risks, and to always meet Grant in a public place. He told her that if Grant ran with the boys, in all likelihood she would be awarded full custody—but she’d have to go through a lot of trouble to find him and get her children back.
In mid-March, Grant wrote again to the friend he’d griped to in February, and his bitterness appeared to have escalated. After answering questions about his music, he complained: “My x started a ridiculous custody dispute over our two sons. I mistakenly came down to NC to answer the hearing and the court ordered I couldn’t leave the state with my boys even though I paid $40,000 to get into my place in New York City. Down the drain.” He said that he couldn’t get gigs in Raleigh and that they were living off their savings and having to pay eighty-five thousand dollars to attorneys, evaluators and psychologists.
“We’ve gone from having financial security to allow my wife and I to stay home all day, to selling jewelry just to keep the lawyers on the case and the lights on.” He said that he’d considered gigs in St. Lucia and Hawaii but he hated to be away from his little boys and his pregnant wife. “I’m dedicated to the arts, been full-time earning a living with my guitar since I was 19 years old.”
He told her his dream was to be a songwriter. “I love to write songs and don’t do anything 99%. I go all the way.”
—
THAT April, Sha went up to Amanda and Grant’s apartment and found her mother sitting on the bathroom floor bawling. Amanda said she felt trapped. She had no options and her money had all “gone down the drain.” Seven months pregnant, and all she could do was wail. “I don’t want to be a single mother at forty but there’s no way he can ever take care of me or these kids. He doesn’t need to have these boys if I’m not here,” she told her daughter.
Grant did nothing to dispel this concern. In May, despite his wife’s advanced state of pregnancy and her imminent due date of May 31, Grant left Amanda to take care of his children on her own and flew to Hawaii. He stayed with his friend Lauren Harris’s fiancé while he was in the islands. Amanda thought he had booked a few gigs, but according to Lauren, Grant just went out looking for the possibility of work.
Grant was still in Hawaii on Mother’s Day. Sha and her new boyfriend, Matt Guddat, a man more than twelve years her senior, took Amanda out to brunch that day. It was the first time Amanda and Matt had met.
Others were more sensitive to Amanda’s needs in her current state. Her in-laws transported the boys for her on one occasion. Laura, too, volunteered to pick up the boys in Raleigh during Grant’s absence. Grant obviously didn’t understand or subscribe to the notion that the needs and desires of his partner were as important as his own. He continued to display the same self-obsessed, callous characteristics in this relationship as he had in the past.