Page 90 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
“Can you give me a hug?”
“Oh,” he says. “Okay, yeah.”
I stand, and for a second he doesn’t know what to do. But then he opens his arms, and I slide in, and he holds me until I feel his heartbeat against my ear. He’s warm and tall and here for me, and for a moment that’s almost enough to make me feel better. But now I’m realizing that I really just want to be alone.
“You good?” he asks, his chin at the top of my head.
“I said no questions, Henry.”
“Oh, right,” he says. “Sorry.”
He opens his arms and lets me go, and I sit back down.
“I know it’s kinda late, but maybe we could watchHome Alone,” he says. “I missed most of it earlier. Or, actually, what am I talking about?The Holiday.”
I close Tim’s laptop. “Not tonight, Henry.”
A Christmas Story
The row house on Charles Street is completely deholidayed. Cal and Mr. Ross helped me with that the other day—the disassembling of the tree, the boxing of the Christmas odds and ends, the tossing of junk. Seasonally agnostic again, the place feels as open and roomy as a fifteen-foot-wide home in one of the densest parts of the city can.
When I got here this morning, though, Brynn’s things were everywhere. If you didn’t know, you’d think she was just out running errands and would be back any second with iced coffee and groceries.
The grapes were sketchy, but the raspberries look okay.
I was happy to have Cal and Mr. Ross around for the grunt work, but I wanted to gather her things alone. I’m not de-Brynning, because that would be impossible, but it’s time for things like the reminder note she left herself about her upcoming hair appointment to be gone.
To quell the silence of being here by myself, I turned the TV on earlier and flipped until I foundA Christmas Story. About halfway through I texted Grace.
You know A Christmas Story? You’ll shoot your eye out, etc. Aside from the leg lamp and bunny outfit, it’s not as funny as I remember.
A few minutes later I texted her again.
I kinda wish Ralphie would shut up about the goddamn BB gun.
My plan is to sleep here tonight in our old house. If things go well, I’ll sleep here tomorrow night, too, and so on. I brought myCity Seriesover from the apartment and set the four pieces over the mantel. Now I’m walking around the house looking for a spot to hang the Christmas painting I made with Ian.
There’s nowhere that makes sense downstairs or in the kitchen, so I head up the creaky wood stairs. The narrow hallway outside our bedroom makes the most sense. I hold it up to the wall, tilt my head. A few weeks back, I determined that myCity Serieswas the best piece of nonadvertising art I’d ever made. This is better.
You remembered to submit your painting, right?
I texted this to Ian this morning. He replied, simply,yea duh.
You feeling good about it?
He wrote back half an hour later.not supposed 2 use my fone at school!!!!
You hear parents talk about how they’d take a bullet for their kids, jump in front of a train, wrestle an alligator. Ian and Bella aren’t my kids, but as I hugged them the other night after Bella’s knock-knock joke, I finally got it. I’d have done anything for them.
It’s too dark up here in the hallway, so I flip the light switch, but nothing happens except a sickly buzzing sound, and I remember what Cal said about a bad socket.
“Shit,” I say.
I flip again, hoping for a domestic miracle, but no luck. I could call Cal and ask him to come over and fix it, but constantly demonstrating my own helplessness is exhausting. Then I remember something he told me once a few years ago.
Brynn and I were over at Cal and Sally’s for dinner. While Brynn and Sally hung out inside, I sat with Cal out back and watched him repair a crack in their stone patio.
“How do you know how to do all this shit, anyway?” I asked. “Like, where did you learn? Definitely not from Dad.”
