Page 80 of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction

“Don’t worry, buddy,” I say. “Tell me everything about camp!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ava chimes in. “We are dying for some donuts. Can we please stop on the way to the house?”

“Two months without donuts! That should be illegal,” Benji chimes in.

We hit the drive-through of a donut chain and get a dozen of the most frosted, sprinkled, and sugared donuts humanly possible. The kids immediately start digging in. Apparently, the cereal at camp did not provide enough sweetness, though I have a hard time believing they’ve been sugar deprived. They also never stop talking. I missed their quick wit, hilarious observations, and our nonstop conversations.

It’s only a thirty-minute drive to the house, but they are both competing for airspace, so I set the timer for ninety seconds, and they alternate back and forth, telling stories. From Ava I hear about rekindled friendships, a two-day camping trip that she was finally old enough to go on, kayaking, and late-night girl-talk sessions. Benji tells me about the wild food combinations he ate in the cafeteria, how he went down the gigantic water slide about a hundred times, zip-lining, and epic games of Frisbee golf.

“Did you guys see each other a lot?” I ask. All summer I’ve convinced myself that they had each other and wouldn’t get too lonely.

“Not really,” Ava says nonchalantly. “Maybe once a day or every other day? It was just enough to have a proof of life.”

“Ava does have a crush on my counselor, though,” Benji blurts out, following it with a comically evil laugh.

“Oh my God, Benji. We’ve been in the car for, like, five minutes,” she says, and I can tell she’s blushing without even looking at her. She shrugs in the seat next to me and says, “He had a cute British accent.” Lord help me with this one.

As we turn the corner onto Wilson Street, I give them the soft rules for the day. First, don’t stress about emptying the car. Yes, it will smell like a locker room for a week as a result, but I just want to spend time with them and not jump into that train wreck. Second, I want to do a grand reveal of the house, so they need to walk through the door with eyes closed and not open them until I say so.

Nothing looks all that different from the outside when we pull up, and they immediately start asking questions.

“Just be patient!” I say as we all jump out of the car and walk up the path to the house.

I unlock the front door and order, “Eyes closed,” and slowly guide them inside.

“Okay, open!” I exclaim.

The look on their faces says it all. Benji immediately starts running around the first floor from room to room. Ava is more stuck in space, gawking at everything around her.

“MOM! Is this for real?” she turns and asks me. I nod that it is real, and this is, in fact, our house.

Benji has already run a lap and is headed up the stairs like a hurricane. Ava drops her cool-preteen act and skips upstairs with him. I can hear their squeals of excitement and delight. Benji yells for her to check out his room; she yells back that, no,hehasto come see her room. I walk up to join them and plop down on Benji’s bed.

“What do you think?” I playfully ask, even though I already know the answer.

“I can’t believe this is our house,” Benji says. “I love this room so much.”

“Mom, my room is so cool. Like, can we please just copy and paste it into my room at home?” Ava asks as she walks through the door to Benji’s room. She rarely likes to give me such effusive credit, so I know that Josh and I did a good job.

I convince them to come downstairs with me and eat more donuts at the kitchen island. I want more tales of their adventures and friendships from the summer. Just as I take my first bite of a cinnamon-sugar donut, Ava jumps in with an unexpected observation.

“I thought that there would be another car in the driveway when we pulled up,” Ava says, staring directly at me.

“Yeah, where’s your boyfriend?” Benji asks, catching my expression before adding, “What? Ava told me like an hour after she got your letter.”

I try to change the topic, but they won’t budge. “You’ve heard about our summers a little bit; now we want to hear about yours,” Ava says. They start grilling me just like Josh and the journalists did all summer.

Is he funny?“Yes, he makes me laugh a lot.”

What’s his job again?“He owns a construction company. He mostly builds houses from the ground up.”

Does he have any pets?“His dog, Hammy, died a little while ago.”

When’s his birthday? We should get him a new puppy.(Not really a question.)

Where does he live?“In a very cool house up high on a hill on the outskirts of town.”

Can we go see it?“Probably eventually.”

---