Page 89 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
“See ya, Dom,” I say.
“Bye, Gracey.”
It’s just after eleven asI head up my front walk. Nadine is a pro, so the kids will be in bed, I’m sure. Nadine and I will chat, like we sometimes do when I get home late. She’s a night owl, so maybe she’ll brew me some tea if she’s not in a hurry to get home. When I open the door, though, I don’t see Nadine. What I see instead is so unexpected that I have to stop and stare in case it’s not real.
Henry is asleep on the couch with my kids. Ian is slumped against his left shoulder, and Bella is curled into the crook of his right arm. Harry Styles, who’s just woken up, looks at me from Henry’s lap.
Then I remember getting a text from Henry earlier and not reading it. I scan it now, along with some new ones from Zoe asking where the hell I went. “Henry, you idiot,” I say, because according to his message he was with Meredith earlier, and now he’s here. I hang the cardigan on the hook by the door.
The coffee table is a disaster. There are paint-splattered scraps of paper, a crusted-over dish of mixed paint and some brushes, and a bowl of popcorn fish. In the middle of it all, lined up side by side, are three paintings of the Rodrigos’ lawn ornaments. Each canvas is signed—Ian, Bella, and Henry. Bella tried hard, which is sweet, but Ian’s is the best thing he’s ever done.
Harry Styles follows me up to my room where I grab Tim’s laptop, and then he follows me back down and into the kitchen. I turn the kettle on, step over the mousetrap, and settle into my spot at the kitchen table. The computer boots up quickly, and I look at the photo of Tim, Bella, Ian, and me smiling on his desktop. He had two email accounts: one for school and one for his personal Gmail. I go to Gmail and prepare to wrestle through passwords, but it opens right away. Aside from bits of spam from companies that don’t know he’s dead, Tim hasn’t gotten any new emails in a long time. I scroll, nothing interesting. The kettle calls out from the stovetop, so I pour some hot water into a mug with a mint tea bag and stand at the sink while it steeps.
Harry Styles lets out a little yelp when Henry enters the kitchenrubbing his eyes. “Hey,” he says. “Sorry, I guess we kinda fell—” He stops. “Wow. Grace. You look…you look amazing.”
I forgot about my dress. The whole thing feels silly and desperate now, but it’s okay because it’s just Henry.
“Thanks,” I say. “Want some tea?”
“Sure.”
I fill a mug for him, drop a tea bag in, sit back down.
“When did you know you were in love with Brynn?” I ask.
He’s just woken up, so I’m sure this is a surprising question. He sits at the table across from me, laughs a little. “Right away,” he says. “What about you?”
“Remember that story I told you?” I ask. “Me, a thing of grace?”
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t ask me out that night,” I say.
Harry Styles curls up under the table and rests his head on my foot.
“A few days later,” I say, “out of nowhere, he sent me an email. He got my address from someone who knew someone who knew me, that kind of thing. I guess that’s creepy, right? He was handsome, though, so I let it slide. The internet was less scary back then.”
“So, he asked you out over email?” asks Henry.
“Eventually,” I say. “Not right away, though. At first, we just emailed. A lot. Like,a lota lot. You don’t know this about me, Henry, but I’m a good writer. Tim was, too. Funny and witty and…vulnerable? We went back and forth for weeks. Like, pen pals. We were friendly at first, then flirty, then…sexy. I fell in love with him over email. Before we even went on an actual date. And he fell in love with me.”
Henry’s hair is sticking up, and his eyes are puffy. He smiles at my nice little love story as I type “Lauren Maxwell” into the Gmail search bar. Henry doesn’t seem to notice that I’m holding my breath. If Tim had feelings for Lauren Maxwell—if he had anything for her—he’d have emailed with her. And probably a lot.
In less than a second her name appears in a digital cascade, and I let that held breath out slowly. I scroll, then I scroll again, and then again. There are 4,288 emails.
“Grace, are you okay?” Henry asks.
I take a burning-hot sip of my tea then bite the inside of my cheek until it hurts. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Can I ask you a favor?” I say.
“Okay.”
“And can you just do it and not ask me any questions about it?”
“Um, all right.”
