Grace
It’s Wednesday now, and I’m out on my front porch with the humane trap when Henry arrives to pick up the kids.
He and Ian are phone buddies now. They’ve been going back and forth about Ian’s contest all week, texting arty things to each other.
Last night after dinner, Henry texted me to ask if he and Ian could do a drawing session on FaceTime.
When I stopped by Ian’s room to say hi, Henry was helping him with a drawing of Will Ferrell from Elf.
“I was wondering,” he said from Ian’s phone screen. “What if we all go to the Walters Art Museum tomorrow? Maybe after the kids get out of school? There’s an exhibit that’d be good for Ian to see.”
I’d already promised Zoe I’d be at work.
When I saw the look of disappointment on Ian’s face, though, a plan came together, because this is the most enthusiastic I’ve seen Ian about anything since Tim died.
I gave Miss Nadine—the kids’ nanny and my other hand and a half—the evening off to let Ian and Bella hang with Henry for a few hours, then we all agreed to meet up at Edgar Allan’s for dinner.
Now here he is, waving at me as he gets out of his car.
“Oh man,” he says when he sees the trap. “How many did we get?”
“Three this time,” I say.
He takes the trap by the handle and grimaces as he looks off in the direction of the playground. “I’ll let them go before we leave,” he says. “Ian can help again.”
The kids and Harry Styles haven’t figured out that Henry’s here yet, so we stand for a moment on my porch. It’s sunny, barely cool enough for a jacket. According to the news, that’ll change soon, though. Cold, real cold, is finally coming.
Henry points at my feet. “You know, I’ve never seen you not wearing running shoes or Crocs.”
I look down at my black ballet flats. “What do you think? I decided to look like an adult today.”
“Classy,” he says.
“Plus, I can’t wear Crocs to work. Total tripping hazard. They should come with a warning sticker. ‘Will fall on face.’ ”
Henry is wearing a light sweater, jeans, and casual boots.
Although the bar for us is set very low, this is the nicest we’ve dressed in each other’s presence.
In another life I’d probably think about kissing him right now, but, in this life, Henry recently asked me for advice on how to talk to his dead wife, so I’ve decided to nip all that in the bud.
“So, just you and the kids,” I say. “Sure you can handle it?”
He looks through the bars at the trapped mice. “I’m a little afraid of Bella, to be honest. She’s intimidating for someone so small.”
I think about Bella’s complicated frown last night when I asked her if she wanted to go look at art with Henry and Ian today—all those neatly stacked questions just below the surface. “She mostly likes you,” I say. “Candy would help.”
“M I can hear them coming. “Keep trying,” I say.
“I don’t know, Grace,” he says. “What if she just doesn’t want anything to do with me?”
Maybe it’s a fair question. Or, maybe we’re both crazy. Who knows? Either way, I tell him to be patient. “When you’re ready,” I say, “it’ll happen.”