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Back Parting Shot Save as PDF
Chapters (68)
  1. Dedication
  2. Title Page
  3. Contents
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Forty-Four
  47. Forty-Five
  48. Forty-Six
  49. Forty-Seven
  50. Forty-Eight
  51. Forty-Nine
  52. Fifty
  53. Fifty-One
  54. Fifty-Two
  55. Fifty-Three
  56. Fifty-Four
  57. Fifty-Five
  58. Fifty-Six
  59. Fifty-Seven
  60. Fifty-Eight
  61. Fifty-Nine
  62. Sixty
  63. Sixty-One
  64. Sixty-Two
  65. Sixty-Three
  66. Sixty-Four
  67. Sixty-Five
  68. Copyright

But then Grant, fearing those points would not be enough to get Jeremy off, hit upon something grander. Jeremy’s mother, everyone said, had a history of micromanaging his life and making excuses for him when he did wrong. When he misbehaved at school, it was the teacher’s fault. The system wasn’t challenging him, so he acted out because he was bored, his mother would argue. If he got in trouble for fighting, Gloria would claim the other kid started it, even if she hadn’t seen what happened. Shortly after Jeremy got his driver’s license at the age of sixteen, he had backed into a lamppost and done several thousand dollars’ worth of damage to his mother’s car. The light on the post, she argued, was not bright enough, and she attempted to sue the town. Jeremy’s behavior could always be traced by his mother to something other than her failure to make him accountable for his actions.

Grant Finch, in attempting to explain Gloria’s parenting style and also garner her some sympathy, highlighted her own traumatic upbringing. She’d been raised by an emotionally abusive father after the death of her mother from cancer when Gloria was only five. By the age of eight, it was more like she was raising him. A real-estate agent with unpredictable hours, he expected Gloria to take care of the house, prepare meals and clean up after. He was relentlessly critical about everything she did, and punished her when she didn’t do well in school.

I jumped to several other stories, looking to fill in the blanks. Gloria’s father died in a car accident when she was eleven. Mad-eline Plimpton, it turned out, was Gloria’s father’s sister. She applied for legal custody of Gloria, and raised her from that point on.

Gloria’d always vowed that when she had children of her own, she’d never treat them the way her father treated her. All the love and attention her mother failed to share with her, she would lavish on her son. Enter the law of unintended consequence. Gloria so managed every aspect of Jeremy’s life—what sports he’d play in, what clubs he’d join, what course he’d take, what friends he’d play with, even what TV shows he should watch—that he began to lose the ability to make a decision of his own. And when he attempted to, he’d get it wrong.

When he was seven years old, he nearly burned the house down while playing with matches. Gloria, so the story went, blamed the manufacturer for making matches that were too easy to light.