Page 53 of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction

“I moved to Greenville to be with Charlie when Sam was only a few months old, and the rest is history, as they say. Forty-seven years and counting. When idiots in town would tell him he was a second choice, he would just brush them off and say, ‘Maybe so, but I’m also the final choice.’ Charlie has always seen me as worthy of his love.

“Gracie, our Ben was kind and generous and so full of love for you and the kids that sometimes I thought he might burst from it all,” Cecily says, tears now rolling down her cheeks.

“Our Ben would want nothing more than for you to find love again. Our Ben knows you are worthy of this, Gracie, just like I do and like Charlie knew I was.”

Our Ben . The first time we visited Ben’s parents after getting engaged, Cecily quietly pulled me out onto the patio.

She handed me a glass of wine and asked if she could spend a few minutes sharing her philosophy on what makes mother- and daughter-in-law relationships work.

By this point, Cecily and I had spent plenty of time together and loved one another. What more could there be to know?

She started off by telling me that she had given this same talk to her three other children by marriage—two other daughters-in-law and one son-in-law. All three of them, like me, adored her.

“The fact of the matter is that I have a Ben and you have a Ben,” she began in a direct tone.

“My Ben is the version that a mother sees. My Ben is in my arms as an infant, he’s snuggling in the bed as a toddler who is afraid of the dark, he’s an outgoing preteen who turns into a sometimes-moody teenager.

He’s a boisterous young man heading off to college.

He is thoughtful but sometimes self-centered.

He is caring but sometimes forgetful. He’s the baby of the family and all of the things that come with that.

He is my Ben. The thing is, Gracie, you have your own version of Ben.

I could make guesses as to what that man is like, but it would be clouded by my own judgment.

We see our partners in a very different way than their families do—the Ben you’ve grown with over the last four years isn’t the one I know.

For the next phase of his life, you will spend more time with him than any other person.

We will both watch him grow, hopefully, into a successful professional, a caring husband, and a loving dad.

But we will see all of this through our own lenses.

Those lenses are different. There is no way around it. ”

Cecily and Ben shared such a fun-loving, lighthearted approach to life. I remember being caught off guard by how serious the conversation was.

“Gracie, what makes a relationship like ours successful is the ability to see the Venn diagram,” she continued.

“ My Ben on one side and your Ben on the other. In the middle, the intersection, is our Ben. The overlap is where all of the things that we both know and love about Ben exist. It is a shared frame of reference.”

Over the years that followed, Cecily and I would share countless conversations about Ben where we would reference my and our . It was a graceful and ingenious shorthand that allowed us to communicate clearly and without prejudice.

“Our Ben really was incredible, wasn’t he?” I say, wiping away tears and glancing at the time. “Gosh, it’s four already. Cecily, I don’t want to hang up, but there are a few things I need to do to be ready to have the kids back tomorrow.”

“Gracie, one more thing before we go,” she starts, her voice cracking. “I can’t wait to meet him: my future son-in-law.”

“Will he get the Venn diagram speech?” I ask through my tears.

“Of course, sweetie, but please don’t tell him about it in advance,” she says. “Family secret.”

—

The evening with Josh is beautiful and full of nervousness. We don’t know the next time he’ll spend the night at the house, the next time we’ll fall asleep tangled together or wake up next to each other in bed.

By noon tomorrow, the kids will be home.

I will overflow with emotions once again and insist on hugging and snuggling until they beg me to stop.

There is so much to show them in the house and so much to hear about their summer that their few, brief letters from camp couldn’t possibly explain.

I need time with them, and they need time with me.

This means, for the first time this summer, that Josh and I will really need to spend time apart.

I kept my promise to Ava. Two weeks ago, I sent her a letter at camp to give her some basic details—so much has happened since then, but somehow everything I told her is thankfully still the truth.

You were right about Josh , I wrote, sketching the eye-roll emoji by hand, knowing that she would find it hilarious.

I was honest with her that I had big feelings and didn’t know exactly where we would go from here.

That’s all I really could share at that point.

I included the photo of us with James and Kendell.

A few days later, I got back a postcard with a sketch on the blank side—a kawaii drawing of a panda with a speech bubble that only said Squee, I can’t wait to hear about it! with a hundred little hearts.

I know she is happy for me and probably has a million questions— Benji, too.

It’s just that I’m certain they will need time just the three of us before they are ready to give their hearts over to someone else.

Thanks to an aggressive amount of texting with Jenny over the last few days, I’m letting myself sit in the emotional complexity of the moment without judging myself as a mom or a romantic partner.

It will be challenging; it will be okay. This is all possible.

“Please take all the time with the kids that you need,” he tells me as we lie in bed, trying desperately to stay awake. “I don’t care if you go quiet for weeks and you’re back in Chapel Hill before it makes sense to call me. I will be here, and I don’t need you to rush.”

He is telling me the truth, and I’m letting myself believe that it will be fine because this is what I know for sure: what Josh and I have is real. It is right. And good people wait and are worth waiting for.