Page 24 of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction

“All done,” I say, turning toward Josh. “I’ve learned to keep camp letters short and sweet. They won’t read anything much longer than a paragraph anyway. The thing they want most is the ‘Love, Mom’ at the end.”

We sit in peaceful silence for a few minutes, sharing a bag of trail mix and taking deep breaths anytime a slight breeze comes by to cool us off.

“Hey, before we go down, can I ask you a question?” I cautiously inquire.

“You know me—I’m an open book. Mostly.”

Mostly , I think, remembering the brief conversation with Lenny about an ex. But that’s not the direction I take my questioning. There’s something else I want to know.

“James introduced you to me as his workaholic younger brother and made jokes about doing an intervention to save you from your job, but I’ve never heard the real story about the series of events that led you to my doorstep.”

Before he can answer, a group of college-aged friends arrive at the landing and gawk over the view.

A few are in the middle of complaining that it’s too hot today and the hike is too hard.

“Stop complaining,” another in the group yells while heading over in our direction.

She asks me to take a photo. I pop up and, after taking a few regular shots, insist that they strike silly poses while yelling, “Hiking is fun!” This makes the group laugh, and I snap what will definitely be their favorite.

They immediately head back down to the relief of the complainers.

When it’s just the two of us again, it’s obvious that the brief diversion gave Josh time to think about how to respond. He dives in.

“Success is strange—you know that better than anyone, and it’s part of the reason why I think we’re able to talk and be open like this. We’re meeting each other on the same level,” he says, looking me in the eyes before he turns back toward the waterfall with a bashful grin.

“When I started my business a decade ago, I dreamt of success like this, especially the money part. At first, I just did small remodels, but within a few years, I had a team and had moved on to high-end ones. Business was solid from the start, but then a friend asked me if I would consider building a house for his family. That changed everything. Their house ended up in some regional home magazines and on websites. Things just took off. I mostly stopped doing real work at that point and focused on running the business.”

“You do realize running a business is still real work?” I interrupt to ask him, while leaning over to bump our shoulders in jest.

“You know exactly what I mean,” he replies, shaking his head. “No hands-on work anymore, just decisions and paperwork and meetings with clients. That’s all important, but it’s not what really fulfills me.”

“I still don’t understand how things got so crazy,” I say. “You have a good team, right?”

“There was some stuff in my personal life about five years ago that made work a mostly healthy coping mechanism for a while. It was a distraction. But things kept getting busier and more intense, and I kept going deeper into it. I didn’t hire other high-level people to help me out; I just took on more.

A year or so ago, it was clear that I couldn’t figure out how to slow down.

It wasn’t just the work, but the pressure.

There were so many people counting on me.

The company builds fifty custom homes a year; we employ and contract with tons of people.

We support local suppliers. Livelihoods depend, in part, on me making the right choices. ”

When he mentioned his personal life and needing distractions, I sat up a little straighter.

That had to be about his ex. I want to know more.

The truth is that I want to know every detail, but he shifted to discussing work stress too fast, and there is now no way for me to bring the conversation back.

Instead, I open up a bit about my own experience.

“It’s definitely not to the same scale, but when I hired a social media intern, and my personal publicist, and a part-time virtual assistant all in the span of two months, it literally changed my life,” I tell him. “It freed me up to do the pieces of my work that I love the most.”

“That’s why everything you do looks effortless,” he tells me, which brings out a grin that I can’t control, because in reality, nothing ever truly feels easy. “Because you were smart enough to get help. I mean, maybe it took you a bit, but you did it.”

“So, what was the breaking point?” I ask him, sensing that in this moment of vulnerability, he might share the one thing I’ve been most curious about since we became real friends. Yes, this is even more important to me than details about his ex.

“One day in April, James and I were out on a run together and I had a full-blown panic attack out of nowhere,” he says, shaking his head nervously.

“We were deep in a trail with no cell service, and it was really scary. James told me later that he thought I was having a heart attack or an undiagnosed asthma attack. He legitimately thought I was going to die out there.”

It dawns on me that about the time I was reeling from a particularly chaotic early spring, Josh was in the midst of his own crisis. There is a long pause, as if Josh is trying to decide whether to share something or not. He turns his body fully toward me before continuing.

“I have no doubt your husband was on James’s mind, and he was really freaked out,” he adds.

“A week later, I walked into what I thought was dinner with his family, but the kids were gone and my parents and a few good friends were there instead. It didn’t take much convincing for me to agree that I needed a break.

Together we came up with a one-month off-ramp plan.

My buddy Tommy stepped into the role of director of operations—which, honestly, I should’ve done for him a long time ago—and he’s hiring a few more people to help run things. ”

“Have you thought about how to get back to work? Is it possible?” I ask.

“Part of the reason James flung me in your direction is because he wanted me to remember what I really love to do,” he tells me.

“I need to be in the mix, planning things out, and working with my hands. The whole business will always be mine until I decide differently, but I think I may need to let other people handle the back-office stuff while I do a small side business of historical-home restoration. One house at a time, at my pace. That’s what I’m leaning toward. ”

“I like that,” I say, because it’s true. That work would suit Josh perfectly. “Canopy and the other towns in the county have no shortage of houses for you to choose from, either. You’d be so great at that.”

“Thanks,” he responds, before adding in a playful dig. “Every time I talk you out of a decision to get rid of a historical feature in your house, I feel closer to my true calling.”

We both laugh and take one more sip of our waters. He packs his bag, stands up, and holds out his hand.

“We should head back down.”

The walk toward the trailhead is quiet and contemplative compared to the way up. When we get back to the truck, there’s a twinge of sadness in my gut that the morning adventure is over.

“Thanks for inviting me here and showing me this beautiful spot,” I say, tossing my backpack into the cab. “This is the first time in forever I haven’t been obsessed with checking the next thing off my list.”

I fight the urge to bring up or apologize for our conversation yesterday afternoon. It feels like our trip out into nature has organically calmed that tension.

“It was fun to have you here,” he says, before adding with a wink, “even if you did slow me down a bit.”

“You know, Josh,” I say, “I told you today wasn’t a workday, but we’ve just spent this entire hike doing interview practice.”

“This was getting to know each other, Gracie.”

—

The morning spent with the waterfalls and trees does wonders for my mind.

I didn’t intend to write at all today, but I’ve learned over the last year to let loose when creativity strikes.

Something about writing those letters to the kids today brought a memory to the forefront of my mind that had been hastily buried in the aftermath of Ben’s death.

I’ve mostly ceased being surprised or amazed at the way grief impacts my mind and body, but it’s overwhelming to think that today’s foray into nature has brought this all back to life. I scroll quickly through my manuscript to the very early chapters to insert a new one.

Letters , I type as the chapter heading.

A month after Ben’s death, I asked his mom, Cecily, to take the kids for a weekend.

It felt like if I didn’t write down everything that I remembered about Ben and his best advice, it might fly away without the kids ever hearing it.

In a perfect world, Ben would’ve had time to write these letters himself. Now it was up to me.

I wrote the letters by hand so that I would labor over every word, choosing each one with purpose and meaning.

I wanted letters that the kids would treasure as they hit different stages of their lives.

Words that would mean one thing to a teenager and another to a recent college grad and another to a new parent.

The contents of the letters will always remain private, so after describing them in broad strokes, I share a handful of the playful names I wrote on the outside of each envelope.

Your dad in college (and other things you should never do).

How to fall in love.

Our first year as parents.

How to stay in love.

Dad’s tips for being brave (or how to scream like a girl when killing spiders).

How to be a good friend.

The full list went on and on. In less than forty-eight hours, I wrote twenty letters for the kids. They were ostensibly full of Ben’s advice, but looking back now, I realize it was all stuff he and I had talked about together. So, there it was again. Ben and Gracie. Gracie and Ben .

As I folded each piece of paper into an envelope and tucked it into a fancy oversize gift box, it felt overwhelmingly like a symbolic first step to wrapping up us . All advice from then on would come directly and solely from me.