Page 54 of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction

When Josh’s alarm goes off at seven, I pull him in close and whisper that it can’t possibly be morning yet.

I think he’s still deep asleep, but in a swift motion, he reaches his arm to the side table to silence the beeping and then rolls over on top of me.

It all happens so fast that it makes me giggle.

We didn’t bother putting on clothes last night, so things are obvious and easy.

There is no way to hide intentions in our bed this morning.

I put one hand behind his neck and run the other down his chest. The feel of him sends a shiver through my body, and it doesn’t take long before we are connected again.

I know it won’t take much time for either of us to reach our moment, so I desperately try to enjoy every second of this, not knowing when I might be able to feel this way again.

He rolls me on top and I rock my hips and kiss his neck.

In mere minutes that go by too quickly, we are done.

“What’s that smile all about?” he asks me while running his hands through my hair.

“I realized last night that I only know you and Canopy in the summertime. I’m looking forward to seeing you both in all seasons,” I say, imagining Josh in a cozy sweater or thermal shirt.

“Fall is my favorite by a mile,” he says. “Winter is gray and wet but beautiful. Spring is great except for my allergies.”

He kisses my forehead and then we force ourselves out of bed. He grabs his clothes from yesterday off the nearby chair. I let myself admire his body as he dresses. I fell in love with him first—his personality, his humor—but I have certainly let myself enjoy all that he has to offer.

“Do you want breakfast before you go?” I ask, knowing that my sparse pantry has very little available. Tomorrow I’ll take the kids to the grocery store to stock up on their favorites for our last few weeks in town.

“Gracie, I love that you are trying to find every excuse to keep me here longer, but I should go,” he says. “You deserve a few hours to yourself before you get the kids. You’ll be happier for it.”

I walk him to the door, and we stand at the open threshold for a minute just sweetly kissing before he pulls me in for a final hug.

It’s the hug you give someone you love at the airport—a little longer and tighter than usual but not too intense, because you know that they’ll be back.

I watch him drive away and turn around to start my day.

—

Dr. Lisa is on the East Coast visiting family, and she’s agreed to squeeze me in for an early-morning session at 8. It was a late night for me, and she’s still jet-lagged, so we both meet with tired eyes and hands full of freshly brewed coffee.

“Gracie, it’s so nice to see you,” she says. “I’ve been looking forward to today’s session and more than a little worried about you after listening to the interview.”

“I want to talk all about it,” I begin, “but before we debrief on the interview with Maisy, I want to tell you what happened the day before and after. I think it matters.”

I spend twenty minutes recounting the argument with Josh—how it started, how I knew even in the moment I was being irrational, how scared he seemed by my reactions, and how I sent him home.

Every excruciating detail. Dr. Lisa is listening intently, and I see a worried look cross her face.

She’s learned to like Josh from afar, and I can sense she’s worried about where this is headed.

“Believe it or not, although I’ve only had a few days to digest it, I’m fairly certain the latest Maisy interview might have been the most cathartic experience of my life,” I tell her. “I came back with a better understanding of my emotional state.”

“I was both proud and concerned, Gracie,” she says. “The interview with you and Darrell was incredibly powerful. You both shared some very raw emotions and stories. It was beautiful, but I also know it must have been very upsetting.”

“It was,” I say, before adding in a half-sarcastic voice, “Maisy was very happy with how our baggage brought social media value.”

“Talk to me a bit about what happened when you got home. Judging by your demeanor, I’m assuming that you and Josh reconciled.”

“We did,” I say, finding myself holding back tears. “We both put all of our feelings on the table. I told him how scared it makes me to be in love again. Neither of us expected this, but I think we’re on the road to figuring it out. It’s the real deal.”

“What concerns or apprehensions do you still have?”

“Not many,” I say. “We talked a lot about logistics. We live in different parts of the state, but I’m confident we have a good plan for long distance. I guess that I’m mostly nervous about bringing someone new into the kids’ lives. I don’t want them to feel like I’m trying to replace Ben.”

“What about you ? What concerns you?”

“I can butter things up in my essays, but it does feel like I’m trying to move on. To move past Ben. Officially. I think that’s what I’m still struggling with.”

“Interesting,” she says. Dr. Lisa’s favorite word hangs in the air. I think about what to say next and how I can better explain the complex web of emotions I feel. Love and loss and lots of things in between. She jumps in before I can.

“Gracie, I was on the fence about giving you a very specific homework assignment, but after hearing you describe things this morning, I know for a fact it’s the right thing to do,” she says.

There’s a brief pause and I fill the gap. “You put me on the right track at every point over the last year. Whatever it is, I will do it and trust that you will be right about it.”

This makes her laugh—a genuine and appreciative laugh.

At this moment, it’s clear that no other therapist could do for me what Dr. Lisa has managed to do.

She has walked a tightrope, knowing when to push and when to hold back.

She has read my cues and engaged in discussions with me that sometimes had no neat answers.

Our sessions have resulted in no less than five essays for The New York Times .

She makes me think. She makes me be honest. She is squarely in my corner.

“Gracie, I would like you to write a letter to Ben,” she says, formally assigning today’s homework.

“Not a farewell letter necessarily, but a collection of your thoughts as you reflect on the last year. Tell him your struggles, your victories, and, most importantly, who you’ve become while he’s been gone.

Write it to him . Of course, it’s for you mostly, but I want you to believe in the spiritual potential of the exercise as you write the letter. Let him listen; let him receive it.”

I want to be dismissive of the assignment.

I want to make jokes about talking to dead people and writing letters to Santa, but the truth is that something about this exercise feels right.

For the last year, I have missed Ben so much.

I have missed every silly little conversation that we had, the funny memes he would send me, the dirty jokes he would whisper in my ear, the sticky love notes on mirrors around the house.

I have missed his voice, his love—him. I want to talk with him so badly.

“Talk to him, Gracie. It’s what you need right now,” she whispers. “And then let him go.”

We make a date for our next session in a few weeks and then sign off. I have a few hours before I need to leave for camp to get the kids, so I walk upstairs to the writing room and begin my assignment.

I sit down at the desk, take out my phone, and do something that I haven’t had the courage to do in months: play Ben’s last audio message. His deep, crackly voice escapes through the speaker.

Hey, babe. The kids are with the sitter and I ordered pizza, so no need to rush home from your meeting.

I hope it’s going well. I know you told me what it was about, but I forget already.

Drew wants to talk about the fantasy football league for next season—already, like an insane person—so I’ll be there for a while.

If you need me to pick up anything on the way home, just let me know.

Okay, well, I think that’s it. I love you, obviously. See you tonight. Bye.

Marriage is funny. You do so many big things together—jobs, relocations, houses, kids—but so much of what makes a happy marriage are the tiny moments.

All the interstitial time that ties the threads between minutes, hours, and days.

The minutiae of life and marriage can be so heartbreakingly simple and beautiful. And so damned easy to take for granted.

The last sound of Ben’s voice that I have is one of those unimportant memos you bounce back and forth.

Groceries you need, good-luck wishes for big meetings, reminders about kids’ birthday parties, and in the case of the evening Ben died, letting your spouse know that the kids are safe with a sitter and you’re about to go have a beer with a friend.

I never got to send a message back. Drew called me in a panic one hour later while I was still at my business dinner, and forty minutes after that, I was holding Ben’s limp hand in a hospital bed.

So, I start my letter with the big news, but before I know it, I’m right back into the little things.

I tell him Ava is shockingly good at long division, Benji scored his first goal in travel soccer, that I have discovered I actually can keep plants alive, that I was right about the fridge door all along, that I was wrong about who does most of the vacuuming.

I tell him about the Canopy house, how right he was about it, and how beautiful it looks now.

I tell him about me—the new version of me.

The ways I’ve changed and grown, and how his death has made me cling to my own strength and faith in ways I never knew were possible.

I tell him about therapy and Dr. Lisa, how Jenny has been there for me every step of the way, about Felicity and all the new friends that I’ve made, and about the unbelievable reality that is my life of interviews and being fame adjacent. I know that term will crack him up.

I tell him that I spent weeks—months, if I’m honest—being angry and mad and disappointed that life had given me this.

But every time I felt ready to give up on the world, I thought of him telling me how beautiful and fair our life had been together.

It’s no easy feat to meet someone at eighteen and make it work into your forties. We did that. I’m proud of us, I say.

Most of all, I tell him I love him. That he was everything to me while he was here, and he will never, ever leave my heart.

We were always meant to be, and maybe this was always meant to be the way our story ended.

I hate that for us, but I cannot regret for a second what we had together.

I thank him for our beautiful children and for all that we made possible together.

Through tears, I ask him if it’s okay for me to move on.

Then I hit the backspace key and replace it with move forward .

Words matter. I don’t want to move too far away from him and his love.

I don’t want to forget it. I want permission that I know he can’t really give me to open my heart to someone else.

You need to give yourself permission , I can hear him saying in my ear.

I tell him that I love him one last time and then stop typing. It is done. I scroll back to the top and read every single word. The letter is hard. It is real. It is us. It is perfect .