Page 51 of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction

When I turn the corner onto Wilson Street, I see Josh’s truck in the driveway.

I’m relieved and scared and overwhelmed.

As I pull into the driveway, I take a deep breath, steeling myself for the conversation that awaits.

I switch off the ignition, leave my bag in the car, and walk up the front path. The stones crunch beneath my shoes.

“I didn’t expect you to be here,” I say to Josh, barely holding my emotions together.

He rises from the porch swing, not a squeak to be heard. Check.

“I wanted to be here for you when you got back. Please, can we go inside and talk?” he asks, motioning to the door.

I nod and walk toward the door. It’s locked. I look at him.

“I didn’t want to assume,” he says, looking at the ground.

This shatters my heart into a million pieces. I can’t believe that I’ve ruined such a good thing with such a good man—made him doubt that I want him in my home.

Once we’re inside, muscle memory guides us to our usual spots at the island. I pull myself onto the stool and turn to look at him. I love him so much it hurts.

“I’m sorry,” he says, grabbing my hand. “What I said the other night was insensitive. I thought I was being— No, it doesn’t matter what I thought I was doing.

I’m sorry that we had that argument and then you had to go and do that interview in Nashville.

I feel like the worst person on the planet.

All that you’ve been holding on to is too much for one person. ”

He’s tearing up, and it dawns on me that he’s as scared as I am. Scared that the person sitting beside him is going to call it quits. Is going to give up on this good thing. I’m crying now, too. I’m too tired to hold anything back.

“Josh, I just wasn’t ready for any of this to happen. You have been the best surprise of my life, but I wasn’t prepared for you and what we have between us,” I say through sobs. “And the other night I said really terrible things, and I’ve spent the last two days afraid that I lost you.”

He stands up and comes over to me, the realization hitting him that I’m not ready to give up, either. I’m not ending things. He cups my face in his hands and puts his forehead to mine. We stay just like this for a minute. No words.

“I need you. I’ve never wanted something more than this. It feels like I’m meant to be here, in this house, with you. My own home doesn’t feel like it’s the right place for me anymore. You are my home, Gracie,” he says as we begin to kiss each other delicately through our tears.

“I want this, too,” I say, wobbly but standing up so that I can properly embrace him.

“It just all feels so unfair to you, Josh. I’m going to be a mess for God knows how long, and we will need to know the answers to some things way too soon.

Because I need to have answers for the kids. Or at least some tentative plans.”

He looks me deep in the eyes and adds, “Gracie, we can do this. Trust me—I want to know the plans, too. I just want to be the person who gets to check that last to-do on the list.”

Check what off which list? He said that like it’s supposed to make sense to me, but it doesn’t compute. I stare at him with a confused expression, which he registers. He pulls the tattered to-do list out of his back pocket and drops it onto the counter.

“ That checklist,” I say with a deep sigh, conveying that we’re now on the same page. “I haven’t looked at it ever. Ben was in charge of our project-planning list, and ten days later he died. I gave it to you the same way I found it folded in the pocket of his jeans when I cleaned out his closet.”

Shock and sadness now cover Josh’s face. I’ve never seen him like this; he’s stunned into silence. For months he’s had a secret with my dead husband, and I’m about to find out what it is.

“You’ve really never looked at it?”

“My heart explodes at the most random things, and I knew that if I looked at it, saw his handwriting, and saw all of the things we planned to do to this house, it would break me into a million pieces,” I confess. “So, I don’t understand what any of this means.”

We’re both quiet now. After a minute, he clears his throat and breaks the silence.

“Every day, usually multiple times a day, I’ve unfolded that list and seen the last thing Ben wrote on it,” he says in a soft voice, unfolding the piece of paper and placing it on the counter where we both can see it. “It says… Love Gracie .”

This breaks whatever bit of self-control I’ve managed to keep. A flood of sobs escapes me. My hands cover my face, and my knees are so unsteady that I’m seconds from collapse. Instead of falling, I am caught. Josh wraps himself around me.

I am without words. Without the legitimate ability to speak. I feel everything and nothing. I forget where I am, who I’m supposed to be. I’m inside my body and completely separate from it.

I feel myself unspooling, and I know in a deep place that this is the great unravel Dr. Lisa tried to prepare me for.

For a minute yesterday, I thought maybe the interview and my great spilling of secrets was the unraveling, but I know better now.

It is here and I am gone. It’s like all of my grief has been living just below the surface and I’ve finally given myself permission to let it out.

Minutes pass, maybe a lot of minutes, maybe hours. All I can do is fall to pieces.

When the pace of my tears calms slightly, when my body is no longer convulsing, Josh puts his hands on my cheeks again and lifts my head so we can finally see into each other’s eyes.

“Truly, all I’ve ever wanted since the day we met is to be the one who gets to check it off the list,” he says, repeating what he’s already told me.

I bite my lip and do the ugly-cry thing, gasping for air. Leave it to Ben to leave care instructions for me from the great beyond.

“This is so scary for me,” I let out. “It won’t be easy. Nothing about this will be easy. It’s going to be so, so hard for you. For me. For us.”

“I know,” he says. “I’m scared, too, but I’m in this.

Gracie, all summer I’ve been fixing up this house, praying that it could be ours together down the road.

I cried the night you told me you might sell it, and I hadn’t even admitted to myself at that point that I had serious feelings for you.

Do you know how crazy that made me feel?

I’m so scared that you’ll wake up one day and realize you made a terrible mistake. ”

“That won’t happen,” I whisper, while staring deeply into his eyes. “I need you.”

“I promise that I will work every day to be worthy of a life with you. With your kids,” he says, inhaling deeply. “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.”

He scoops me up and takes me back to the guest room, which now feels like our bedroom.

We taste each other’s tears as we fall onto the bed.

He runs his strong hands through my hair and down my back, unzipping my dress.

I tuck my hands under his shirt and peel it over his head.

I have never needed someone more in my life.

There is an otherworldly intensity between us. It is not the forceful intensity of our first night, but a delicate one. I feel not just all of my own emotions, but his, too. Our bodies move together in perfect harmony through deep breaths and moans.

“I love you so much,” he says into my ear.

“I love you, too,” I say back, staring at him as my world expands and shrinks out of my control.