Page 8 of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction

For an hour, I lie on the floor talking with them about their hopes for camp while they drift off to sleep.

I doze off for a few minutes but then wake up and walk quietly to my room for one more good night of sleep in a familiar place before I spend the summer getting to know a new one all alone.

There is a strange sense of nostalgia for this home I haven’t left yet.

Ben is everywhere here—not just in the photos on the wall, but in every decor choice (he loved buying ridiculous carved-wood animals everywhere we went) and furniture arrangement.

We built this house together. It feels inconceivable to say goodbye to it, even for just one summer.

A predictable but still miserable wave of sadness hits me as I lie down in the bed, fully clothed, to wonder if this life I’m living will ever get a little easier. Unfortunately, easy is not on the agenda tonight.

—

The fetal position gets a bad rap. Too many people view it as emblematic of a complete collapse. The reality is more nuanced.

For me, it’s the ultimate act of self-preservation that acknowledges all shades of the devastation color wheel while simultaneously easing my body out from the stresses of the world.

The curved spine, the tucked head. It’s a brilliant act of release against the rigidity of the worst seasons of life.

One side of my body gets warm against the crisp linen duvet while the other feels the fresh breeze from the fan above. I am stifled and free all at once. It’s the best position for that sticky mix of exhaustion, overwhelm, and loneliness that I feel this evening.

Of course, the fetal position is how Ava finds me an hour after I leave her room.

“I couldn’t stay asleep—I’m too excited to leave tomorrow,” she says, cracking the door slightly to witness tonight’s mental malaise. She raises her eyebrows when she sees me. “Is everything okay?”

I’ve mostly hidden my worst moments of grief from the kids, but it’s a delicate balance.

I want them to know it’s healthy, normal, and admirable to experience grief.

If you tuck away grief too much, it makes it harder to deal with when it jumps out at you when you least expect it.

Being open and honest about our grief is something that we’ve handled pretty well as a downsized family of three.

Tonight’s situation is an entirely different beast. It’s a full-body-and-mind grief-induced exhaustion that borders on paralysis.

Despite my best efforts, a few times over the last year Ava has found me in a variation of this scene: curled up in my trusty fetal position, fully clothed, lying on the unmade bed, trying to muster the will to get up, do the nightly skin-care routine, and crawl back into bed with a whisper of hope that tomorrow will be better.

Early on it was fairly common for me to be fetal and sobbing. Lately, however, I can’t seem to cry. Maybe it’s the sensory overload of my life or maybe I’ve just cried so much since Ben died that there are no tears left in my body. Tonight, I’m mostly numb.

“Have you sent a note to the group chat?” Ava asks, crawling into the bed to face me, tucking a lock of hair gently behind my ear.

“Do I look that pathetic?” I ask back.

“You look like you need Aunt Jenny,” Ava says, examining me with the curious and judgmental eyes that only preteens can fully master. “Maybe even Keke.”

I smile through the stress. The group text has ten amazing women from all stages of my life.

The local girls are the ones who jump in when I need a night out or a meal delivered.

Friends who live states away are often the ones who take long or late-night phone calls.

Different time zones are an unexpected gift after years of bemoaning long-distance friendship.

Jenny is my oldest and closest friend. I’ve known her since we were ten years old in Charlotte.

Although she’s not my actual sister, she’s Ava’s godmother and practically family.

Keke is a clinical professor of psychology.

The fact that these are the two people Ava thinks I need tonight—well, it suggests things look even worse than they feel.

More times than I care to admit over the last year I’ve sent a note to the group text akin to a bat signal.

I need to talk. Today was the worst. I can’t believe I have to live without Ben forever.

If I have to decide what to make for dinner one more night, I’m going to lose it.

Will I ever have free time again? To be fair, those last two sentiments were shared in the pre-widow days, too.

Every time, without fail, a video chat request comes through from one or more of the girls within minutes. Some of my friends are more lighthearted, like Jenny, and others are more serious, like Keke. The universe always seems to find exactly the right friend for me to talk to in the moment.

“Where’s your phone?” Ava asks.

I gesture to the nightstand, and she rolls over to Ben’s side of the bed to grab it.

“Is there anything in particular I should say?”

“It’s everything and nothing,” I quickly answer. “That’s probably enough.”

Ava taps away, kindly places the phone next to me, and kisses my forehead.

She mumbles something about not staying up too late on the phone and quietly walks back to her room.

I glance down at the text thread and see Mom is freaking out about the summer.

Someone please call her, she looks pathetic.

Love you all. She read me like a book. The message is lighthearted enough, however, for me to know that she’s not too worried.

While I’m reading Ava’s message, Jenny responds with a heart and quick On it note. This will keep the other girls from stressing out and save their Friday night from becoming a widow-filled bummer. I know my friends don’t really feel that way, but I do.

A few minutes later, a FaceTime comes in from my dearest, most trusted friend. Before I can say a word, she jumps in.

“Did you put that oxygen mask on?” she asks, skipping the normal pleasantries and asking a question she already knows the answer to. “Tell me everything.”

“It is everything , Jenny,” I begin. “I’m already missing the kids for the summer, I’m sad to leave this bed and the imaginary Ben smells, I’m weirded out by the new routine I need to manage and nervous about spending months in that crappy house.”

“It’s a lot to handle, and it’s completely understandable,” she responds. “From your text the other day, I assumed that the house was getting fixed up?”

“It is,” I answer, “assuming James’s brother actually knows what he’s doing, but I’m losing my mind about everything. I’m really scared about the book not living up to expectations. I don’t want to disappoint everyone. I want to honor Ben’s memory.”

She’s uncharacteristically quiet for a split second, and it’s clear I’ve given her a useful nugget to work with.

“Listen, Gracie, I’m not going to pretend that the book and the column aren’t a big damn deal, because it still blows my mind what my best friend has achieved,” she says in her no-nonsense voice so that I know she’s serious.

“But I’ve also never been more sure of or more confident in someone’s ability to get a job done.

You’ve totally got this. Ben would be so proud—of the column, of the book, of everything you managed to make happen this last year. ”

“A year ago, when I agreed to all of this, I thought it would make me feel closer to him, you know?” I share. “I thought that writing about Ben all of the time would be this invisible tether to keep him right here where he belongs. It’s all just so much more complicated than that.”

“I get that; I do,” she says. “Don’t get mad at me for asking, but are you getting out enough? You know that I would never tell you that you need to ‘move on,’ but sometimes an escape is a good thing.”

“Both my and Ben’s parents watched the kids a bunch last month,” I answer. “I went on three dates and two girls’ nights out. Getting out is not my problem.”

“Three dates?” she responds in a curious voice, jumping on the one non-bummer detail that I’ve offered her. “Any potential?”

“All very nice. Two doctors and a lawyer. Nothing special.”

“Anyone special…enough?” she asks with a giggle, clearly trying to lighten the mood and genuinely wondering if I slept with any of them.

Jenny found her husband in her late thirties, so she spent most of her adult life dating.

As such, she has a very different view of casual hookups than I do.

She’s always telling me not to take things so seriously.

I try to embrace that, I really do, but it’s not easy.

“I’m not sure my intimacy-starved need for attention makes someone truly special, but you could say they were enough of something.”

“I’ll take that as a humble yes that you got lucky,” she says with a subtle smile.

“I’ll also say this to my humble friend: you are smart and funny, curious, and immensely talented.

I know dating is hard and feels meaningless right now, but you are a catch and there is someone else out there for you. I know it.”

“I just keep hoping Ben will walk back through the door and tell me there’s been a big mistake or he just wanted the life insurance money,” I say wistfully. “I wouldn’t even be mad.”

“Gracie, that breaks my heart. I wish that were possible, but you know it’s not,” she says, injecting that jolt of reality I know is right but that makes my chest ache. “Have you talked to your therapist about this?”

“She could drop all her other clients and I’m pretty sure I could keep her in business,” I answer. “I’m embarrassed how much I still need you all—you, the girls, Dr. Lisa—to keep me from sinking,” I say.

“Sweetie, when’s the last time you cried?” she asks me with genuine concern, acknowledging the dry eyes staring back at her. This seems more like a Keke question, and it makes me wonder what conversations they’ve had without me.

“Three months ago,” I respond.