Page 75 of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction

Thirty minutes later,and I’m at my gate with just a few minutes to spare before boarding. I sit down and grab my phone to start finally working through my text messages.

“Excuse me, are you Gracie Harris?” the college-age girl across the seating area asks me.

I nod. Two other women nearby—one who looks to be in herthirties and the other much older—chime in to say, “Oh my goodness, itisyou!” Before I know what’s happening I’m surrounded by a small group of women who have formed a little cocoon around me. Somehow, I’m not overwhelmed with social anxiety.

They take turns telling me how much they loved the interview, even though it must’ve been hard for me. The college student tells me that the podcast was the first time she ever heard of me—she only started listening to Maisy because she is trying to connect more with her mom, who is a huge Maisy fan. She was googling me in the airport when I showed up.

“I had to look up and down from my phone a few times to convince myself it was you,” she tells me. “If you could’ve seen me yesterday listening to that podcast! Girl, I had mascara running down my face. I think we all did.”

When boarding starts, I bring each of them in for a generous hug before we go our separate ways. The interview was hard, but it mattered. It really did. It also might end up being the catalyst for my new life—if I haven’t broken it beyond recognition.

Chapter 30

When I turn the corneronto Wilson Street, I see Josh’s truck in the driveway. I’m relieved and scared and overwhelmed. As I pull into the driveway, I take a deep breath, steeling myself for the conversation that awaits. I switch off the ignition, leave my bag in the car, and walk up the front path. The stones crunch beneath my shoes.

“I didn’t expect you to be here,” I say to Josh, barely holding my emotions together.

He rises from the porch swing, not a squeak to be heard. Check.

“I wanted to be here for you when you got back. Please, can we go inside and talk?” he asks, motioning to the door.

I nod and walk toward the door. It’s locked. I look at him.

“I didn’t want to assume,” he says, looking at the ground.

This shatters my heart into a million pieces. I can’t believe that I’ve ruined such a good thing with such a good man—made him doubt that I want him in my home.

Once we’re inside, muscle memory guides us to our usual spotsat the island. I pull myself onto the stool and turn to look at him. I love him so much it hurts.

“I’m sorry,” he says, grabbing my hand. “What I said the other night was insensitive. I thought I was being— No, it doesn’t matter what I thought I was doing. I’m sorry that we had that argument and then you had to go and do that interview in Nashville. I feel like the worst person on the planet. All that you’ve been holding on to is too much for one person.”

He’s tearing up, and it dawns on me that he’s as scared as I am. Scared that the person sitting beside him is going to call it quits. Is going to give up on this good thing. I’m crying now, too. I’m too tired to hold anything back.

“Josh, I just wasn’t ready for any of this to happen. You have been the best surprise of my life, but I wasn’t prepared for you and what we have between us,” I say through sobs. “And the other night I said really terrible things, and I’ve spent the last two days afraid that I lost you.”

He stands up and comes over to me, the realization hitting him that I’m not ready to give up, either. I’m not ending things. He cups my face in his hands and puts his forehead to mine. We stay just like this for a minute. No words.

“I need you. I’ve never wanted something more than this. It feels like I’m meant to be here, in this house, with you. My own home doesn’t feel like it’s the right place for me anymore. You are my home, Gracie,” he says as we begin to kiss each other delicately through our tears.

“I want this, too,” I say, wobbly but standing up so that I can properly embrace him. “It just all feels so unfair to you, Josh. I’mgoing to be a mess for God knows how long, and we will need to know the answers to some things way too soon. Because I need to have answers for the kids. Or at least some tentative plans.”

He looks me deep in the eyes and adds, “Gracie, we can do this. Trust me—I want to know the plans, too. I just want to be the person who gets to check that last to-do on the list.”

Check what off which list? He said that like it’s supposed to make sense to me, but it doesn’t compute. I stare at him with a confused expression, which he registers. He pulls the tattered to-do list out of his back pocket and drops it onto the counter.

“Thatchecklist,” I say with a deep sigh, conveying that we’re now on the same page. “I haven’t looked at itever.Ben was in charge of our project-planning list, and ten days later he died. I gave it to you the same way I found it folded in the pocket of his jeans when I cleaned out his closet.”

Shock and sadness now cover Josh’s face. I’ve never seen him like this; he’s stunned into silence. For months he’s had a secret with my dead husband, and I’m about to find out what it is.

“You’ve really never looked at it?”

“My heart explodes at the most random things, and I knew that if I looked at it, saw his handwriting, and saw all of the things we planned to do to this house, it would break me into a million pieces,” I confess. “So, I don’t understand what any of this means.”

We’re both quiet now. After a minute, he clears his throat and breaks the silence.

“Every day, usually multiple times a day, I’ve unfolded that list and seen the last thing Ben wrote on it,” he says in a soft voice, unfolding the piece of paper and placing it on the counter where we both can see it. “It says…Love Gracie.”

This breaks whatever bit of self-control I’ve managed to keep. A flood of sobs escapes me. My hands cover my face, and my knees are so unsteady that I’m seconds from collapse. Instead of falling, I am caught. Josh wraps himself around me.

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