HelloHelbig

Hannah had come to Grace’s townhouse to prepare supper around the same time she usually left work; 4:10pm but on a Saturday afternoon. She unlocked the front door, strode in, and headed straight for the back door. She flung it outward before immediately side-stepping. Goose barreled through, as she always did, into the back yard and Hannah paralleled the counter, crab walking between the wall and the island, to the fridge. This had proceeded without fail of familiarity for two months. Today, there was a difference. Her back was to the person sitting quietly in the recliner. Watching her.

Not that she noticed. Her earbuds were blasting Etta James and she, herself, was singing along. The spectator in the recliner sat up a bit straighter as they observed the blonde swaying her hips in time to violins they couldn’t hear but what they could hear was Hannah pitching a voice like an angel to “At Last”.

That was the moment Grace first thought of what she would later call “The Plan”. At that moment, however, she was simply enjoying the show her girlfriend put on as she pulled juice out of the fridge. The spell-binding performance was halted, becoming a comedy, when the short woman began hopping to reach the granola bars on top of the refrigerator. She pushed herself out of the seat to save her girlfriend from the mildest of hunger pains. Walking up from behind her, Grace reached up, plucking a bar from inside of the box, and dangled it in front of Hannah.

Forgetting the snack completely, Hannah spun around, embracing the taller woman and to nuzzle her face into Grace’s neck.

“You don’t have work, today?” came the question, muffled around the skin Hannah’s lips were busy kissing.

The tall blonde swallowed and pulled back, her arms around Hannah’s neck. “Not today.”

She was used to Hannah’s undivided attention, now. She still liked it. It still thrilled her. She wanted to tell Hannah, but it just wasn’t something she wanted to say. So she hadn’t. Which did phase the short teacher, now and then. She might sulk and not text as much throughout the day. Grace would have to make it up to her by taking her time off work- like today- and talking. Which Hannah knew she didn’t like to do, because that was all she did, at work.

Grace didn’t like talking, at all, really. However, to communicate with Hannah that talking thing was necessary. Even in the bedroom, constant assurance was needed from her in noises she didn’t like making. Luckily, the reward was too satisfying not to sacrifice the expense of temporary embarrassment brought along with the groans. 

They still weren’t living together, and that annoyed Grace.  She didn’t want to invite Hannah to move in with her, but she also didn’t like waking up and not seeing her cute face on the pillow across from her own. There were two toothbrushes in the master suite bathroom. The teacher had three drawers for dress clothes, day-wear, and underwear which shared with night pjs.

Hannah hadn’t brought it up. She did not want to intrude in Grace’s home and she refused to ask her to leave it entirely to move into a small apartment with other roommates. So... Grace was caught in a decision she didn’t want to make.

Choices weren’t her thing. She just rolled with things. Her school sent the request for her to attend, her work requested her to join, her father left the townhouse to her when he moved to New York. Asking Hannah to go out with her was the first big decision she had done, herself, and she was in her mid-twenties. 

The news broadcaster thought about what she should say, which was unfortunately another choice. “Do you want to move in?” or maybe: “Hey, you should leave that apartment and come here because this is my house and you are my girlfriend and what is mine should be around me.” None of them seemed appropriate, especially not the one considering Hannah as her property. 

It was Saturday, October 20th, 2013. Neither woman knowing what would happen the next morning, when Grace would walk into work. They were together, right then, and nothing else mattered to either. No words were exchanged for a very long time. Later still, a dinner of delivered sushi and... even later, nachos with guacamole haphazardly strewn on a plate was shared and paired with a white wine and snuggling in front of the glowing television playing NCIS. Grace fell asleep with Hannah on her chest and between her legs. Bent up to cradle around the woman, this itself was outside of routine. Hannah stayed awake. She turned off the TV set with the clicker and took a deep breath, knowing hers and Grace’s would mutually reek tomorrow, neither having brushed their teeth.

Goose was snoring on the recliner adjacent to them. The house creaked in a layer of sound overpowered by the kicked-on and whirring of the central heater.

Hannah realized she was finally happy. Life wasn’t perfect, of course. Grace wouldn’t always tell her “good night” or “I love you” when she wanted to hear it. But she told Hannah when the timing was right. She said it when they locked eyes. When they weren’t tired or drunk, Grace would tell Hannah she loved. When Grace said something to Hannah it was with complete sincerity and it meant something very powerful. Like anything Grace did; from rolling with laughter to exerting herself at the gym. Hannah liked that determined look in Grace’s eyes, that focus for the words “I love you” and how they were only for her.

That was how Hannah fell asleep; her nose pressed into Grace’s soft chest, her fingers clutching Grace’s ribs, and her lips smiling.

Grace awoke to observe that first-hand, with a crick in her neck from the couch’s arm rest. She learned the art of not waking Hannah did not have to be fine-tuned when she arose to get dressed in her shorts and baggy t-shirt. The heavy sleeper continued on and behind her as the dutiful early riser slid the door open to let the dog out into the yard. Before she went out through the side door, Grace took a deep breath in and shot a good-morning text to Hannah’s phone as she walked to the gym.

It was routine and yet it felt new. She would invite Hannah to share her space with her, today. Feeling ridiculously giddy, she had run four miles instead of two by the time she shifted to weight training. Her body was wired. As she repped butterflies with her brows stern, she considered what she was supposed to do. Because she did not only want Hannah to share her bed and her house. Hell, she wanted to share her life. Sharing was something she hated, she had to share with two brothers the majority of her childhood, for crying out loud.

But... once she started thinking, she could not stop. Grace wanted to take Hannah on adventures even though she never wanted to leave her house, before. She wanted to try new food and see how Hannah reacted. She wanted to surprise Hannah even though she herself hated surprises. She wanted to... make Hannah happy and spend as much time with her as possible, when she did not like being with other people much at all.

Right. Moving in to her place. She could be spontaneous and romantic, couldn’t she? Get another spare key, wrap it in a bow? No... Hannah already had her own key. Grace face-palmed as she figured she should probably apologize for not telling Hannah earlier and outright that she should move in with her. This was not a big deal. Not huge news, either, Grace told herself. Hannah practically lived there, already.

Her gym had finished installing their showers and as Grace soaked in the steamy spray, she sulked in her own regret for a while. She dried off, changed, and headed to the broadcast station. Her muscles were sore and her shoulders were stiff, but she had to go to that meeting. She opened her phone, and at first glance, it was a picture of dawn... but actually a meme with a black man shouting “Sun-RISE, Mothafucka” and Grace snorted.

By the time she had walked back into her house, she heard a whine of plumbing; she then knew Hannah was upstairs, using the shower. Reading emails at the same time, her hand stretched out to snag the smoothie. Hannah had taken to fixing them for her, after her tea. Slurping it as she left for work, Grace shot a selfie with a wink and a thank you as a picture message.

When she got to work, the entry way- usually humming with people trying to organize and calibrate the set- was empty. The place was bereft; empty in the lobby and in the hallways. But there was yammering, faint and distant, so Grace followed that direction to the conference room she had already been on her way into. There was “FINALLY, Grace, Jesus, it took you long enough.” Mamrie barreling from behind her, hooking her forearm in her own. The meteorologist dragged the newsanchor through the entry way.

“Everyone,” it was Tony. His hair had started thinning last year and his receding hair line still sported a widow’s peak. “We’re going to be interrupted by CNN since they’ve got the live shit, but we have the upper hand here and we’ll cut as soon as there’s word on whether or not it passes. Grace?” He looked across the dozens of faces standing around him until she raised her hand and he zeroed in. After pointing with his stylus at her direction, he clarified, “I want you- Craig, shut up!- you’re going to be co-ing this tonight. And…” he scanned again, “Anthony… Yeah, there you are, you’re on for courthouse steps. Load up in the van with Charlie. Mamrie, you’re first up, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

“Hot damn,” Mamrie muttered, spinning both of them around towards makeup, “You are the luckiest bitch in the dogpound, if he had known you weren’t here the last twenty minutes, fucking Darlene might have taken your post.”

“Did I miss the meeting?”

“Yeah, my battery died in the car this morning,” Mamrie sat down in her chair in front of the dresser, “so I was going to text you and bitch with you instead of at you, but you weren’t here when I got here and I was two minutes late when you’re a fucking day early all the time.” She lifted her neck so Pamela could start laying foundation. “I had Sarah look up who had sent the email on her ipad, and when I saw it was a name I didn’t recognize as the sender, I asked and found out the girl is Darlene’s personal assistant.” She heard Grace’s genuine gasp of horror, “Exactly! So I covered for you, said you were finalizing some wardrobe in the lobby because EVERYONE was here, Grace. It was a MASS email to literally everyone but you? Come on.”

Grace’s eyes were narrowed by the time Mamrie tilted her head forward.

“Fucking Darlene,” they intoned together.

It wasn’t long before Grace was handed her prompt for the night’s news. CNN was still cut over their station broadcast by the time Grace walked on set. Craig smiled and waved, and she reflected that he really loved his job. She wished she could have that same enthusiasm. Or at least feel the way she had projected to the camera about her career for the last few years.

“So,” Craig suggested, “you think we’re safe? I mean they can’t pass the bill, it’s gotta stay.” His microphone was adjusted to his ear by a stagehand… Grace couldn’t remember her name, though.

Grace smiled and laughed a little before asking, “Safe from what?”

“Well, from all that political shit,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I get that there are more of them, now, but there’s not enough to pass that bill.” The guy picked up his papers from the desk and scanned the document. “It has to get stayed, and when it does? They’re going to shoot the messengers.”

“I don’t really follow, are you talking about the debate on letting public schools give epi-pens to asthmatics?”

His handsome face became confused. Craig turned to look at her as if she had handed him a rubber chicken: amused, but concerned. “Gays, Grace. Homos run the internet, now, and when we tell them they can’t get married in the State of New Jersey, they’re just going to get pissed, again, like they did in 2011 when they were ignored from the twin towers clean up. I mean… Suck it up, right? Terrorists are a bigger threat than your ability to have a ‘fabulous’ wedding,” he started to chuckle to himself.

Short-circuited, Grace stammered, “W-why would… what?”

“Quiet on set!” Her attention jerked forward, to the blinding lights. The cameraman started showing fingers counting down from below the glow of the teleprompter and Grace read along as Craig’s voice changed pitch to serious-shit. “That is our top story, tonight, New Jersey. I’m Craig Thompson, channel six news.”

It was her turn: “And I’m Grace Helbig, your guide through this state and its uproar. Hundreds of couples ”

Grace swallowed because Craig continued. “As hundreds of couples line up outside of courthouse, so do hundreds of protesters. The stay of the bill, requested a few months ago, has been… denied,” the slightest pause Grace had ever heard from Craig, on or off camera. And it was her turn, again.

“It does not change the fact that the bill passed, giving same-sex couples the right to marriage-,” the teleprompter kept rolling, but Grace couldn’t keep up. “the right to… due to the civil union being designated… uh…” Grace couldn’t hear the whirring of cameras, anymore. Just the tapping jolts her heart rang through her ears.

But it was more like the sound of gears turning very quickly in her head. Realization of how Hannah had integrated herself into Grace’s life. How she caught Hannah watching her doing dishes, and physically caught Hannah when they stumbled home drunk, and breathing in Hannah in bedsheets, and smiling at Hannah dancing while she brushed her teeth. Imagination ran wild with the images of Hannah’s hand in her own and of kissing her girlfriend in front of everyone in a church, filled with their family and friends. For the first time on the job, Grace genuinely smiled.

“We can get married.” She looked around herself, realizing she had said it aloud. Standing, she cocked her head, no longer looking at the teleprompter or the camera. Grace turned to look at Tony, standing where he always did out of frame on set, and couldn’t dim the brightness she had radiating from her grin. “Sorry, but… I’m out of here.” The camera cut to show only Craig, but that was just a shot of a very confused man at a loss for words.

Grace didn’t sprint. She walked. All the way home. She took the steps by two’s. When she unlocked the door, she could see past the living room and into the kitchen. At the island, Hannah was grading papers, petting Goose. Goose leapt off Hannah’s lap to sprint her way, and Hannah’s head looked up from her work to smile at her, amused. Grace dodged the canine bullet in time to make her way, all of the way, to Hannah. She was hugging and gripping the woman so tight.

Her station phone would ring and messages would ding; but after that night, it had been the last time Grace had ever worked in New Jersey. 

"Isn’t it perfect?" Grace had taken Hannah to a nice neighborhood in uptown New York. An apartment building she said was really important.

Hannah glanced around, smiling, and asked “Perfect for what?”

"An apartment! Isn’t it perfect, for an apartment? Look, it’s on the first floor, it has two bedrooms- a master and a guest…" Grace trailed off, stepping down the hallway, but turned behind to look back at Hannah. "Don’t just stand there."

Hannah shook her head, but followed as Grace showed her the master bed and bath, then the guest suite. Grace tugged her by the sleeve to show her the kitchen, and she shoved her into the office; at least Grace said that it could be an office. To Hannah, it looked just like a nursery. Too much like a nursery, actually, with its yellow walls and white trimming; its rounded corners.

As Grace started saying how the location was ideal- close to the deli and subway and shopping center- the shorter woman spun around in the open sitting room, spreading her arms out as she did so, before slowing to a stop and looking at Grace. “You’re right.” Hannah lamented. “It is the perfect New York apartment.”

"Well… it’s also close to where you, me, and Michelle met at that pub? It’s just down the street."

After furrowing her brows and frowning a moment, Hannah lifted a finger in the Western direction.

And Grace smiled, saying, “Yeah.”

Hannah smiled back, “Cool. Uh… so what are we doing here?”

"Well…" Grace reached out for Hannah’s hand. Hannah was surprised but let her hold it. The taller woman continued, "I was wondering if you would move back here, to New York, with me."

Her eyes wide, Hannah beamed, “Really?” When Grace started nodding, Hannah couldn’t help but laugh out, “Hell yeah. Oh, fuck, yes, Grace!” She grabbed behind  Grace’s head and pulled her down to kiss her, deeply. They would start over, in New York, together.

…

This is the part where you shouldn’t read it if you want to keep the fluffy light feeling in your chest, actually. Like it’s a happy ending, but it’s about the end.

…

The room was bright and Hannah knew she had slept in, again. Her muscles ached from atrophy but she knew they would still be sore even after significant motion began. But like every morning, she wanted to walk the street, alone, to her and Grace’s restaurant and order a tea. Deeply, she inhaled the scent of Gain detergent still clinging to the pillow sham; only to cough as a result. Sinuses weren’t what they once were.

She shifted her weight to the left so that her momentum would carry her left foot off the bed and to the floor.  After a moment of hesitant stepping, she managed to hear the creak of the floorboard beneath her toes. The short woman straightened up, smoothing her front legs, a dark blue plaid, of her pajamas. Keeping one hand on the bedspread, she tilted to the nightstand to grab her glasses. When she managed her tremor for long enough, she could see, again, and when she found her oak cane, she leant to reach it, too. By the time she could straighten properly, she snuffled; this time, because she was short of oxygen.

Hannah looked down below, angled and slipped her house shoes on from beneath her and shuffled to the restroom in the apartment. The one thing she learned quickly was to take the mirror directly in front of the door in the bathroom down. But she needed to go to the sink. And she saw the reflection of a woman who didn’t look too bad, for her upper eighties. She ran a thumb along her cheek, feeling vast wrinkles’ indentions. Hanging on the wall, perpendicular to the sink, was where her home health had installed her oxygen. She unhooked her nasal cannula and reached a shaking, feeble hand to the dial and hit “Old Spice.” The scent hit her and drove her memories to a time before; a time when she and Grace had shared that bed.

A welcome relief came with the oxygen.

By then, Hannah Hart had lived fifty years in that apartment; she was used to the white noise; even more used to it now that her hearing was leaving her.

Which was why she nearly had a heart attack when she heard someone behind her say, ”Well I guess it’s morning, then.” Grace- young, beautiful, and sardonic- was behind her. Through old cataracts and clear lenses, Hannah saw her in the mirror.

The surprised jump in the elderly woman made Grace startle, and yell “Aaaaaa! No! Can you not, right now? What?”

Hannah couldn’t form a coherent sentence. She couldn’t even stutter. She just pointed at the reflection in the mirror and turned around to see… nothing.

"Oh." Grace sighed in relief. "Finally, you can hear me. Uhm… awkward. You’re gonna die in a few like… moments. I’d go to the bathroom now, if I were you. Maybe call 9-1-1."

But Hannah’s heart had already started taking what little life she had left in her away.

It didn’t last long, and it only hurt for a minute.

Then Hannah was staring at what was once her body, laying on the floor, on the other side of the mirror. But… she was standing… wasn’t she?

"Hannah?" she heard a voice beckon. She turned, again, to see young, beautiful Grace. This time actually behind her, wearing sweatpants… and her hair in a bun… and a t-shirt that was too big for her.

"Grace, what…?" but she was wrapped up in Grace’s arms.

It had been so long, since she’d been in those arms. And she could smell… old spice… she smelled the real old spice, not that fragrence she had implored the home health nurses to infuse her oxygen with. When Hannah looked down at herself, she was wearing ivy leagers and tweed and… “Grace?”

"It’s what we’re most comfortable in. Cool, right?"

Hannah squinted at her. Everything was so bright. She could see everything, without her glasses. “You’re dead, Grace. You died, saving me… and… and…” Hannah started to cry.

"Hey, hey, no! I wanted to do that."

"But you could’ve… you shouldn’t have-"

"Yes, I should. You should have moved on, you dork. Jesus." Grace started to laugh. "We weren’t even married, you didn’t have to go all widow’s watch on me."

"It hurt, Grace. It hurt, living without you."

"Yeah, well, rest assured, it hurt getting hit by that taxi. Gah. And for a while, too, my spine got, like, totally decimated. It felt like… like swords but everywhere you wouldn’t expect swords. Even in my feet. I always knew you were lucky, you know that? You died fast, I took it slow and painful. Sucked." Grace looked down at Hannah. "But worth it."

"So we’re dead?" Hannah asked, still hugging Grace’s… from to her own.

"Well our bodies are. It turns out our souls like to linger."

Hannah’s eyebrows drew together; “Souls? What about God? Isn’t He a thing?”

"Yeah; I was surprised. But we can stay here until we’re ready to go home. Home is just… when we want to go. But since you were playing Dismal-Dan since my death, I… y’know." Grace shrugged.

"You didn’t have to stay, for me." Hannah told her.

Grace smiled. “You were already waiting for me.”

"For years," they said, together.

Hannah looked up, perplexed at Grace. The taller woman pulled back until only one arm was around Hannah’s shoulders. “You talk in your sleep,” she explained. “And you kept saying my name. Sometimes smiling, sometimes not.- Oh, let’s get out of here. I’m telling you, you don’t want to watch your body. Not a lot of people who knew you are still alive. Good job on the non-alcoholism, by the way. If you had gone before me, I don’t think I’d be that far behind you.” Grace angled Hannah to turn away from her dead corpse on the other side of the mirror. “Hm… let’s go down our street before we head Home. Okay? One last time.”

They started walking, together, out the reflected walkway of their universe. It took Hannah some adjustment; she was a creature of habit and even her soul had trouble mixing right with left turns in familiar trenches. “Grace?” 

"Yeah?"

"The clock says nine, but almost no one is walking around. Is it just dead people?"

"Oh. No. It’s just nine at night."

Hannah looked around at the sunny uptown neighborhood. “What?”

"Uhm… it doesn’t get dark. Ever. Which is probably why haunting at night is so popular? Lots of spirits do it 24/7, but… meh. People only notice when it’s dark and quiet. So… since it’s never nighttime, but never quite morning… it’s more like…"

"Nine in the afternoon?"

"Pfft," Grace started laughing. "Yeah," she said past her giggles, tightening her grip on the woman she’d been waiting years for. "When you were decrepit with those gigantic glasses, I really did think you had eyes the size of the moon."

The End