Page 27 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
“Oh.”
“I was thinking about it the other day.” She leans against the fenderof my car and nods at her front door. “Don’t get me wrong. I love those little weirdos. Edgar Allan’s is killing it. And Baltimore’s cool. Our life here is good, all things considered. But if it were just me, nothing keeping me here…”
“It’s funny you say that,” I say.
“Yeah, why?”
I look at the now-dark reindeer, sad suddenly, because I haven’t said this aloud in a while. “I’m moving to L.A.”
A brief but intense negotiation with Bella ensues about how I owe her M&M’s, then I tell the kids to get their little butts to bed or the beatings will begin. They know I don’t mean it, but they hustle upstairs anyway. Harry Styles is in on it, too, sprinting up after them, his collar jingling like Christmas.
“I’ll be up to tuck you in in a minute!” I shout.
As I hang Tim’s jacket on the hook by the door, I wonder if it still smells like him, or if I just think it does. Brains are tricky like that. For all the press they get for being so smart, in my experience, they still answer to our stupid hearts.
Bella is nearly asleep when I get up to her room. I kiss her forehead and pull the covers to her armpits.
“Is Henry gonna come back again, do you think?” she asks.
“Maybe,” I say. “I think he’s a little lonely.”
She stares at the ceiling. “He’s not Daddy, though.”
“I know, baby. But that’s not his fault.”
It’s like I can see her brain working. “What about you?” she asks. “Areyoulonely?”
I’m so perfectly equipped to have a daughter. Girlhood, womanhood, mean girls, getting your period, shaving versus waxing,advocating for yourself, fighting the patriarchy. I might as well have a PhD in all of it. Most of all, though, I know that when a girl asks a question, she’s really asking several, like Russian dolls nested together.
“Nope,” I say. “How could I be? I’ve got you, right?”
Across the hall, Ian is nowhere near asleep.
“Can you believe how scared Henry was?” he asks.
Teasing Henry is probably the thing I’ve enjoyed most about knowing him. I feel the need to come to his defense, though. “There’s a difference between being startled and scared, bud. Mice are startling if you’re not expecting them.”
“He screamed, though. Three times. No, wait, four, I think.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I counted four, too.”
“He liked my drawings.”
“Well, duh. He has eyeballs, doesn’t he?”
Ian smiles.
“And Henry knows what he’s talking about, too. He’s an artist.”
“Really?”
“He works in advertising.”
Ian sits up against his headboard. “There’s a competition at school,” he says, excited now. “Who can draw the best picture about Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. Eighth graders always win it, but…maybeIcould win?”
As well as I know the inner workings of girl brains, being Ian’s mom has always felt like taking a test I didn’t study for. Until I was about thirty, I assumed all boys were aggressively stupid, sports-obsessed cave children. And while most of the boys I know fit that description, Ian just doesn’t. He’s sensitive, delicate—a sweet kid. Do I encourage him to draw his heart out for this random contest, or do I temper his expectations with the relentless cruelties of real life?
“Of course you can,” I say, going with the first one, because maybe he’s had enough reality lately.
