Misc spoilers through episode 2.10.
Each chapter will contain two commandments and be about this long, so this will be a fairly short fic.
It's my headcannon that the Wards are Irish Catholic, so I've chosen the Catholic formulation of the commandments, in case anyone cares.
If it's not clear, the odd-numbered commandments occur when Grant is nine (before the well), whereas the even-numbered commandments occur each year following the well.
The First Commandment: I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt not have other gods beside me.
Age Nine
This rule was about wanting. That was what the Sunday School teacher had said. That you were breaking this rule if you wanted anything more than you wanted to love God. The kids had been supposed to draw a picture of a sad person getting money or prizes or cool toys – whatever they wanted the most – beside a happy picture of a person being with God in heaven.
Grant doesn't do the assignment. He doesn't really understand the rule.
Grant Ward is nine years old and he doesn't want anything.
He doesn't really have preferences. When his mother asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, he just shrugged. He liked his presents, but he didn't particularly want them. He wouldn't have been disappointed if he didn't get them, and he wasn't sad when Christian broke his RC car.
He doesn't use his imagination very often. He can imagine, of course. He can imagine where the ball will go next in a game of flag football and position himself appropriately. He can imagine what a room looks like from Christian's perspective and pick a good place to hide. He can imagine how his mother will act when she and Dad finish arguing. He imagines all those things when he needs to. What he doesn't do is sit around daydreaming about how he might have a happy family or a perfect life.
He doesn't really want anything at all.
It's not good to want too much, of course, to be greedy or selfish. But there's something unsettling about a child who doesn't want things. How do you raise such a child?
There is an easy explanation for this desireless state, an easy explanation that is also quite wrong: Grant Ward had just about everything a child could want. He grew up in a gorgeous home with a well-stocked kitchen. He always had new clothes, never hand-me-downs. He went to the finest private schools and had tutors for French and piano. He played soccer and baseball and he had horseback riding lessons on Saturdays. He had all the newest video game systems and every conceivable cartridge. He was taken on vacations to the beach and to Europe. At the tender age of nine, he had already rubbed elbows with America's elites and foreign dignitaries.
And yet, most children raised in such opulence still find toys to add to their Christmas lists, still find unhad experiences to fill their daydreams. So how had the Wards managed to raise a boy who would be at a loss should he ever find a wish-granting genie?
They kept him confused and changed the rules frequently.
"Grant, take out the trash."
"It's raining, Mother."
"I didn't ask about the weather. I told you to take out the trash."
So Grant does what he is told.
"Grant Douglas Ward!" shrieks Mother. "Why are you all wet?!"
They told him he wanted things that he didn't really want.
"Who did this?" breathes Mother, her voice soft and dangerous.
Christian shoves Grant forward. Grant shakes his head frantically, but that means nothing.
"Why would you destroy Thomas's picture?" she asks.
There isn't a good answer. Because Christian made him. Because he was afraid. Because because because. Grant says nothing.
"He just hates Thomas, Mother," says Christian. "I don't know why. He just wants Thomas gone."
They made sure he knew that wanting something was the first step toward losing it.
"How was your riding lesson?" asks Father.
"Hestia is gone!" cries Grant.
"Of course she is. Didn't I tell you? We found a buyer down South."
"But Hestia was my horse!" And I loved her, Grant thinks but didn't say.
"Now she's someone else's."
"But I didn't get to say goodbye!"
Father shakes his glass. "Go get me some more ice."
The Second Commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Age Ten
The second commandment was about things you're not supposed to say. You shouldn't swear, of course, but it was okay to say words that sound like swear words. You could say goshdarn as long as you didn't say goddamn. There were other things Grant knew he wasn't supposed to say. He wasn't supposed to say anything to journalists. He wasn't supposed to talk about Mother's pills or Father's friends or pretty much anything about his sister. These were family rules and they were important.
But now Grant was sitting on the floor of Dr. Craig's office and he wasn't sure if those rules applied or not. He was playing Dr. Craig in Jenga and he was doing pretty well.
"Do you know why your parents brought you here?" asked Dr. Craig.
The tip of Grant's tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on a particularly stubborn piece. He finally freed it with a satisfied exhale. "Because I hurt my little brother and they want to know what's wrong with me." Grant knew it was okay to say that. It's a family secret, but he was supposed to talk to the doctors about it. That's why he kept seeing different doctors.
"Do you think there's something wrong with you?"
"I think if I was crazy, I wouldn't know I was crazy, otherwise I wouldn't really believe crazy stuff."
"That's pretty clever. Do you believe any crazy stuff?"
"I don't think so."
Dr. Craig loosened a piece of the tower. "Can you swim, Grant?"
"Yep."
"Do you like to go swimming?"
"Are you going to take your turn?"
Dr. Craig smiled and worked the piece free. "Do you like to go swimming?" he repeated.
"Sure, it's okay," said Grant. "I like the ocean."
"What do you like about it?"
"It's big and you get to see the fish. I like the waves."
"Have you ever been down inside your family's well?"
Grant looked sullen, which was stupid because he knew questions about the well were coming.
"You don't have to answer that if you don't want to," said Dr. Craig.
"Okay." Grant crawled a few feet to the right so that he could see the tower from another angle. He picked his piece carefully and began to wiggle it free. Not carefully enough. The tower collapsed.
"Whoa," said Dr. Craig, observing the boy's defensive wince. This was precisely why he liked to play Jenga with his young patients. He started stacking the pieces up so they could play again. "Have you ever knocked anything over at your house?"
"Yeah," said Grant, intent on stacking the little wooden blocks. "It was a little glass statue and it broke into lots of pieces."
"What happened then?"
"Mother made me stand on the pieces in my bare feet for hours and hours."
That must have been one of those things that you're not supposed to say, because Grant never saw Dr. Craig again.