Grace #2
“We’re tougher than they are, Grace.” She’s been telling me this since I was six. Women are stronger than men. Smarter. Generally less gross. “Maybe you can help him.”
“Is that my job now?” I ask. “Fixer of Sad Henrys?”
She sets her towel on the counter. “No. But maybe he’s not the only one who could use a friend.”
For reasons I can’t explain—probably leftover hardwiring from when I was a teenager—I prefer when my mom is wrong about things.
It’s been nice talking to Henry, though, like bumping into a fellow expat when you’re far from home.
I grab a better beer for myself, pour some rosé, and find two juice boxes in the fridge, then my mom tries to fix my hair.
“Will you stop it!”
“Could you at least try, Grace? You look like you’re about to march for women’s suffrage.”
“Goddammit, Mom, that doesn’t even make sense!”
Outside again, the temperature has dipped with the sun, so I pull a blanket over my legs. Much to my mom’s horror, I stepped into my fleece-lined Crocs on the way out. She calls them my depression shoes, which…okay, I’ll give her that one.
“What was your wife’s name?” I ask.
“Brynn,” he says.
I remember that now, either from my mom or the news. “Pretty name.”
“Your husband?”
“Tim.”
Ian and Bella both look up from across the yard where they’re sitting with Harry Styles and drinking their juice boxes. I spoke softly, but their dad’s name carries.
“What was Brynn like?”
He hesitates, but I tell him to go ahead. “Don’t know if you’ve experienced this,” I say, “but people don’t want to talk about Tim anymore. I think it makes them uncomfortable.”
He nods. “She was lovely.”
“Yeah? Say more things. Rapid-fire. Go.”
“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Well, everyone thought she was shy. She wasn’t, though. She was just one of those people who had to get to know you. Once that happened, she’d talk all day. She was tall. Blondish. She told everyone she was allergic to seafood, but she wasn’t. She just hated it.”
“Yikes,” I say. “That’ll get a girl arrested in this town.”
“She was really good at math,” he says. “It was part of her job.”
As I watch the oranges and reds blend in the fire, I start to picture her. “A tall blonde with math skills, huh?” I say. “I would’ve hated her.”
A little botoxed smile, then he asks what Tim was like.
“Also lovely,” I say. “Can guys be lovely?”
“Sure.”
“He loved seafood,” I say, “especially crabs, because he wasn’t a weirdo. He loved baseball, too, and his students, and…” I nod over at the kids. “Them. Me. Us.”
“That does sound lovely,” says Henry.
“Yep. I had a lovely husband, and he’s gone. It’s fine, though. I mean, now I’ve got a dog with a pop star’s name who sometimes humps my shoes.”
The fire crackles, weakening.
“Do you find that you’re tired a lot?” Henry asks.
“Oh my god, yeah,” I say. “In fairness, I have two kids, so I’ve been tired for like eleven years. The dead-husband thing, though, is extra exhausting.”
Ian and Bella are done with their juice boxes and are tossing the stick back and forth while Harry Styles runs between them.
He may be dog-shaped chaos. He may regularly roll in gross things that he finds in the yard.
And, yes, he really does sometimes hump my shoes.
He’s also the thing that’s holding all this together.
Henry crosses his legs and sips his pink wine.
“You know, no offense,” I say, “but at work when dudes order rosé I secretly judge them. You, though? You’re pulling it off.”
He raises his glass, and I take a sip of my beer.
“I’m worried about these first holidays without her,” he says.
“The firsts,” I say. “Yeah, all the firsts suck. Halloween was terrible. Last Valentine’s Day was a real kick in the shorts.” I don’t mention how terrible the anniversary of Tim’s death will be, because I’m sure he’s already thought about that.
“I’m worried about the seconds, too,” he says. “The thirds. Will I someday be like, ‘This is my eleventh Arbor Day without her’?”
“Yeah,” I say, “Arbor Day is a particularly difficult time in the grief community.”
Henry taps his chest. “Stay strong.”
I don’t know if he’s cute in his own way, but he’s funny in his own way, which I like.
“We can be friends if you want,” I tell him. This surprises me because it doesn’t sound like something I’d say, more like something scared kids tell each other on the first day of summer camp.
He seems unsure. That’s fair—I’m just some woman in Crocs he didn’t even expect to meet today.
“It makes sense, right?” I say. “We’re the only people who know what it’s like to be us.”
He nods slowly a few times at the fire, like he’s processing this. “Okay, yeah, let’s do it.” He holds out his hand. I brace myself for it to be cold, but it’s not. “Our moms will be happy, at least,” he says.
“I’m gonna tell mine that we’re boning,” I say. “You know, just to give her a little thrill.”
It’s not exactly a spit take, but Henry laugh laughs this time, which makes me smile even though I was going for deadpan. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the poor guy looks better already.