Page 55 of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction

I cry when I see Benji and Ava waving to me from the hill where they wait with a hundred other campers to be picked up by their parents.

They can’t move until it’s their turn, so we just wave and smile.

Ava mimes to me Are you crying? and then jokingly rolls her eyes when I nod yes.

Even twenty yards away, her eye-roll skills are unmatched.

When it’s finally our turn, they come bursting down the hill and we share a huge, life-giving hug.

I then take time to hug them individually and squeeze their little faces.

All the while, camp counselors are loading the SUV with trunks and bags and what seems like way more stuff than they arrived with.

“It all fit in on the way here,” I yell back. “Just keep shoving it in! We’re not going too far.”

Camp drop-off is slow and easy, but pickup is a no-nonsense, well-oiled machine.

They each get a high five from a counselor, and then we’re back in the car for the drive to the house.

They roll down the windows and open the sunroof so that they can yell goodbye to their respective sets of friends as we exit on the long gravel driveway.

“I missed you guys so much!” I squeal. “Even though the car literally smells like wet socks already and I will be doing laundry for three days straight.”

“Mom, I’m gonna be honest,” Benji starts. “Some of my stuff is really funky. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry, buddy,” I say. “Tell me everything about camp!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ava chimes in. “We are dying for some donuts. Can we please stop on the way to the house?”

“Two months without donuts! That should be illegal,” Benji chimes in.

We hit the drive-through of a donut chain and get a dozen of the most frosted, sprinkled, and sugared donuts humanly possible.

The kids immediately start digging in. Apparently, the cereal at camp did not provide enough sweetness, though I have a hard time believing they’ve been sugar deprived.

They also never stop talking. I missed their quick wit, hilarious observations, and our nonstop conversations.

It’s only a thirty-minute drive to the house, but they are both competing for airspace, so I set the timer for ninety seconds, and they alternate back and forth, telling stories.

From Ava I hear about rekindled friendships, a two-day camping trip that she was finally old enough to go on, kayaking, and late-night girl-talk sessions.

Benji tells me about the wild food combinations he ate in the cafeteria, how he went down the gigantic water slide about a hundred times, zip-lining, and epic games of Frisbee golf.

“Did you guys see each other a lot?” I ask. All summer I’ve convinced myself that they had each other and wouldn’t get too lonely.

“Not really,” Ava says nonchalantly. “Maybe once a day or every other day? It was just enough to have a proof of life.”

“Ava does have a crush on my counselor, though,” Benji blurts out, following it with a comically evil laugh.

“Oh my God, Benji. We’ve been in the car for, like, five minutes,” she says, and I can tell she’s blushing without even looking at her. She shrugs in the seat next to me and says, “He had a cute British accent.” Lord help me with this one.

As we turn the corner onto Wilson Street, I give them the soft rules for the day.

First, don’t stress about emptying the car.

Yes, it will smell like a locker room for a week as a result, but I just want to spend time with them and not jump into that train wreck.

Second, I want to do a grand reveal of the house, so they need to walk through the door with eyes closed and not open them until I say so.

Nothing looks all that different from the outside when we pull up, and they immediately start asking questions.

“Just be patient!” I say as we all jump out of the car and walk up the path to the house.

I unlock the front door and order, “Eyes closed,” and slowly guide them inside.

“Okay, open!” I exclaim.

The look on their faces says it all. Benji immediately starts running around the first floor from room to room. Ava is more stuck in space, gawking at everything around her.

“MOM! Is this for real?” she turns and asks me. I nod that it is real, and this is, in fact, our house.

Benji has already run a lap and is headed up the stairs like a hurricane.

Ava drops her cool-preteen act and skips upstairs with him.

I can hear their squeals of excitement and delight.

Benji yells for her to check out his room; she yells back that, no, he has to come see her room.

I walk up to join them and plop down on Benji’s bed.

“What do you think?” I playfully ask, even though I already know the answer.

“I can’t believe this is our house,” Benji says. “I love this room so much.”

“Mom, my room is so cool. Like, can we please just copy and paste it into my room at home?” Ava asks as she walks through the door to Benji’s room. She rarely likes to give me such effusive credit, so I know that Josh and I did a good job.

I convince them to come downstairs with me and eat more donuts at the kitchen island. I want more tales of their adventures and friendships from the summer. Just as I take my first bite of a cinnamon-sugar donut, Ava jumps in with an unexpected observation.

“I thought that there would be another car in the driveway when we pulled up,” Ava says, staring directly at me.

“Yeah, where’s your boyfriend?” Benji asks, catching my expression before adding, “What? Ava told me like an hour after she got your letter.”

I try to change the topic, but they won’t budge. “You’ve heard about our summers a little bit; now we want to hear about yours,” Ava says. They start grilling me just like Josh and the journalists did all summer.

Is he funny? “Yes, he makes me laugh a lot.”

What’s his job again? “He owns a construction company. He mostly builds houses from the ground up.”

Does he have any pets? “His dog, Hammy, died a little while ago.”

When’s his birthday? We should get him a new puppy. (Not really a question.)

Where does he live? “In a very cool house up high on a hill on the outskirts of town.”

Can we go see it? “Probably eventually.”

Does he fish? “Yes.”

Does he like kids? “You won’t believe this, but he has ten godchildren! Yes, he likes kids. He can’t wait to see the two of you again.”

What’s your favorite thing about him? “We can talk about anything.”

Are there any house projects left that we can help with? “We’ll have to ask Josh.”

Oh yeah, what about your book? “I’ll be done in two days.”

Once they get past the surface-level stuff, they fire off a quick succession of deeper questions, some of which I’ve planned for.

Will we split time between here and home? “We won’t rush into anything, but the plan is to spend the school year at home, most holidays and summers here.”

Will he live with us? “Yes, we’re going to try that out when we’re all ready. He will probably bounce between home and here much more than us for his job. His work will be out here.”

Will you get married? “It’s very possible.”

Do you think you’ll have kids together? “I have no idea.”

Then Benji asks a question that I don’t expect from my ten-year-old boy: “Do you love him?”

“Yes,” I answer without hesitation. “Very much.”

“So, I’d like to go back to Benji’s original question,” Ava says. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“I assumed that you’d want time together with just the three of us, and I wasn’t sure what your reactions would be to the news,” I say through tears that are now flowing. I’m overwhelmed by their maturity and love for me. “You two are my priority.”

“You’re our priority,” Ava says back with a look of exasperation. “And it’s not like we didn’t already see him at the start of the summer. I don’t want to have to tell all of the camp stories twice.”

“Seriously, Mom, this makes us really happy,” Benji adds. His face tells me he’s not sure why it’s such a big deal. “You should invite him over for dinner.”

They both hop down from their stools and pull me into an even bigger hug than we had standing in the camp driveway. In addition to becoming a lightweight social butterfly, I’m now also apparently a crier. I can’t stop the waterworks.

I walk out to the front porch and grab my phone from my back pocket. I start to text and then realize that I want nothing more than to hear Josh’s voice and share how the day has gone down. He picks up on the second ring. He’s breathing heavily.

“Hey, I’m out on a run with James. I didn’t expect to hear from you today. Is everything okay?” he says. I hear James yell, “Hey, Gracie!” in the background.

“Yeah, it’s more than okay. Why don’t you call me when you’re done?”

“Gracie, you can’t tease me like this. What’s up?”

I clear my throat, take a deep breath, and try to keep my emotions in check.

“Ava and Benji want to know if you’d like to come over tonight for dinner.”

Josh is quiet for a few seconds and then finally chokes out, “Are you serious? Like, tonight?”

“Very serious. In fact, they were disappointed you weren’t here when we got home, but to be honest, I think I probably saved you from some serious grilling, and trust me—kid questions are way more unpredictable than journalists’.”

“Yes, yes, yes. I will be there.”

“The kids only want to order in, so it’ll just be pizza or burritos or something, but why don’t you come over around five or six?”

“I’ll be there. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.”

—

I make the kids shower before Josh comes over. The camp stink is real, but they both look (and smell) mostly presentable when Josh walks in the door at 5:30. He’s visibly nervous, which makes me love him even more. I’ve never seen him quite like this.

Ava and Benji pop up from their game of Uno to reintroduce themselves. They were both hopped up on the pre-camp adrenaline last time they saw him, so neither has a clear picture of him in their mind.

“It’s nice to see you guys again,” Josh says. “I’ve been looking forward to it all summer.”