Grace
Watching this guy drink a beer is like watching someone test something for poison. He sips, looks with trepidation into his glass, awaits death.
We’re on the cushy outdoor chairs in my parents’ backyard by the firepit, which my dad has had burning all afternoon.
Harry Styles is chasing Ian in circles on the grass while Bella holds a stick and watches.
I find this whole setup offensive because Henry’s mom has clearly told him nothing about me, yet mine has given me his life story.
His name is Henry Adler. He’s an advertising guy, cute in his own way, no kids, dead wife.
Along with being the mommest expression I’ve ever heard, “cute in his own way” isn’t specific enough to describe Henry.
He’s tall, but not weirdly so. He’s thin, but not in a way that makes you think he works out all that much.
Is he cute? Fine, maybe, like a guy in a bank commercial.
His specific level of attractiveness is irrelevant, though.
He looks like the first guy you go out with in your midtwenties after you decide once and for all to stop dating complete assholes.
His appeal lies in the fact that you can take one look at him and know that he’s not going to drain your checking account and run off with a Pilates instructor.
“Soooo?” I say. “What do you think?”
He looks back into his beer, trepidation again. “It’s not bad.”
“Really? You don’t think it’s too hoppy?”
“I’ll be honest,” he says. “I don’t really drink beer very often.”
“Ha!” I say. “Well shit, dude. You’re a lotta help.”
“Sorry. What does too hoppy mean?”
“Is it bitter at the back of your throat? Like a bite?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
I sip my own because I poured glasses for both of us. “Agreed. Our distributor wants me to carry it at my bar. I don’t know. Everyone’s just trying to out-hop everyone else. It’s boring.”
“What bar?” he asks.
“Bar and restaurant, officially,” I say. “You know Edgar Allan’s over in Federal Hill?”
“Oh, okay,” he says. “Cool place.”
Everyone knows Edgar Allan’s. It’s an institution in town—divey enough to keep locals happy, but quirky and “Baltimore” enough to bring in tourists.
Our signature life-size bronze statue of Edgar Allan Poe right by the front door is featured in about a million selfies a year with #EdgarandMe.
Last Saturday a bride and groom stopped in with their photographer on the way to their reception. #EdgarandMe4Ever.
“That’s actually not too far from our house,” Henry says, then I watch him deflate because he meant my house. The stupid grammar of death again.
I already know what he does for work, but I ask him anyway because I don’t want to look like a stalker. Advertising, he confirms. “I’m on vacation, though,” he says.
Our eyes meet, then his flutter back to the fire, and I wonder if I look as obviously sad as he does.
In the beforetimes, I would’ve assumed all grief is created equal.
There’s a website I found, though, called GriefUnited.
It’s like Reddit for sad people, with posts, links to articles, never-ending threads.
That’s where I learned that grief comes in tiers.
For example, an elderly spouse dying peacefully in their sleep after a long, loving marriage is one of the lowest tiers—entry-level sadness.
After all, isn’t that what we sign up for when we get married: a down payment on heartbreak?
Tim’s death scores much higher because our kids are so young and because who dies of prostate cancer when they’re forty-two anyway?
A plane crash, though? An event that makes the national news? That’s on a whole other level.
“So, do you live here?” Henry asks. “With your parents?”
“God no,” I say, literally shuddering. “That would lead to me killing at least one of them, and I feel like enough people have died, don’t you?”
Henry looks startled.
“Sorry,” I say. “Grief manifests in mysterious ways. For me it’s inappropriate jokes that make everyone uncomfortable.”
“Right,” he says. “I’ve recently started replaying Mario Kart.”
“Nice. Old-school. But yeah, no. We’re a couple of miles away in Homeland. Just visiting for the day. You?” As I ask this, I realize it’s one of the few things I don’t know about Henry.
“That’s complicated,” he says. “My parents kicked me out today. I don’t actually live with them, though, so it was mostly symbolic.
” He takes another sip of his beer, even though he obviously thinks it’s gross.
“I have an apartment down in Fells Point. I got it right after…I haven’t actually been to the house, our house, since… ”
“That was a lot of half sentences,” I say. “I gotcha, though.”
As he watches the fire, I take in the general state of him.
Now that I think about it, he’s a little too thin.
That’s the thing about womanless men: They either get too fat or too skinny.
Solid hair, though, I’ll give him that. It could use a trim, and he needs to shave, particularly down his neck, but a good head of hair ain’t nothin’.
“Is this the first time someone’s set you up?” I ask.
He nods. “How’d I do?”
My mom pretends not to be checking on us through the kitchen window. I give her a look like, Seriously? and she ducks out of sight. “Your total confusion was charming,” I say. “You were like a stunned baby deer.”
“They could’ve worked a little harder on that modem story, huh?” he says.
“Right? C-minus for effort.”
He laughs, but not really. It’s more like a hmm sound that’s meant to acknowledge that I’ve made an attempt at humor.
“Technically this is my first, too,” I say. “People’ve been threatening me with guys for about a month, though. Everyone knows someone. A divorced dude or some weird bachelor who probably has a sex dungeon.”
“God, that sounds exhausting.”
“What? A sex dungeon?”
“No,” he says. “Well, yeah. But the setups, I mean.”
“Better get used to it,” I say. “Single guy with quality hair and a job? The ladies are gonna be jumping out at you from behind bushes.”
He sips, grimaces again.
“Here, give me that,” I say, taking his glass.
Across the yard, Harry Styles has gotten the zoomies. He steals Bella’s stick, which leads to wild chasing. When Ian manages to wrangle it away, Harry Styles nips the cuff of his jeans. “No biting!” I shout. “You wanna go in your crate?”
Harry Styles folds his ears back at “crate,” but bites Bella’s little ass anyway, then sprints in a berserk circle around the yard.
“Last warning! One more and you’re going to jail!”
My mom creeps again, a silver-haired assassin, and I wonder what she hopes to see. Henry and I making out right here in the yard, perhaps? Harry Styles and the kids cheering us on?
“That would actually be quite a headline,” says Henry.
“What would?”
“Harry Styles detained in Baltimore for biting children.”
I laugh. “Well, look at that, Henry. You’re smiling.”
“Yeah?”
“Totally. I mean, it’s kinda one of those dead-behind-the-eyes smiles, but I’ve seen worse. I’m the same way, see?” I move my lips now, show him my teeth. “My mouth mostly works, but the rest of my smile muscles don’t, like they’ve been botoxed.”
Henry flashes his teeth now, too, mimicking my face, and I hope my mom is still watching this: Henry and me fake grinning at each other like psychopaths.
“We look perfectly happy,” he says.
“Yep. Not sad at all.”
We return our faces to their normal configurations, and everyone and the dog pause to stare up at a tree with a bird that won’t shut up.
“I am sad, though,” says Henry.
“Duh,” I say. “It’s called the fourth stage of grief. The big D. Depression. Welcome to the club.”
“It’s nice to admit it,” he says. “I spend a lot of energy trying to convince everyone that I’m fine. I hate the idea of people worrying about me.”
Bella watches Henry and me from across the yard. She’s become such a watchful kid since Tim died. She was so normal before—giggly and silly. Now she looks like a little girl in colorized footage from the dust bowl, like she’s just waiting for something even shittier to happen.
“You know what, let ’em worry,” I say. “Own your sadness. Get yourself some Costco sweatpants. Listen to the Cure. Quit grooming. Go all in.”
“Costco sells sweatpants?”
“Are you kidding? Costco sells everything. And their sweatpants will change your life. No joke. They’re that comfortable. The entire time we’ve been talking, I’ve been waiting for you to leave so I can go home and put mine back on.”
A log shifts in the fire, and for the fourth time today Ian asks if he and Bella can make s’mores. Then Harry Styles pees on the kids’ soccer ball, because he is dog-shaped chaos.
“Ew!” says Ian.
“Groooossss!” says Bella.
“Harry Styles, we have a guest!” I shout. “Ian, buddy, be a sweetheart and spray that with the hose, okay?”
“Harry Styles detained in Baltimore for public urination,” says Henry, and I bet we’d both be laughing if it weren’t for all this sadness injected into our faces.
“So, what do you drink, Henry? Wine? Cocktails? Organic juice boxes?”
“Wine would be nice,” he says.
“Cool. My parents have some reds, I think—maybe a rosé left over from summer.”
“I’ll take a rosé.”
Back in the kitchen, my mom is ostensibly drying a butter dish. “Well, he seems nice. Handsome, too. Kind of. And he’s pretty tall.”
I open the fridge. “Mom, you gotta stop this. I told you, I’m not ready to date. And the only person on the planet less ready to date than me is that guy out there.”
“Who said anything about dating?” She puts the butter dish down and starts toweling off a perfectly dry water glass. “I just think it’d be good for you to talk to someone who’s been through what you have. It’d be good for him, too. His mom’s worried about him. Says he’s having a tough time.”
We look out the window at Henry. Harry Styles is showing him Bella’s stick.
“I’m no expert,” my mom says, “but he looks like he could use a friend.”
Harry Styles sets the stick in Henry’s lap, and Henry gives it a light toss.