College Move-In

AUGUST 2020
MACKENZIE-RABB RESIDENCE
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

The five stages of grief can apply to any big change in a person's life, not just death. Harmon Rabb Jr. had faced a lot of changes in his life, fatherhood probably being the biggest change. Fatherhood overall didn't require the stages of grief for Harm, but certain aspects of it did.

Harm had been not-so-secretly dreading Clara leaving for college since she was three weeks old and he and Mac decided to start saving up for her college. Now, the time was upon him, and he wasn't prepared for his first baby to leave the nest.

Not in the slightest. In fact, he was being an utter basket case about it.

The first stage, denial, met Harm head on a few days before Clara was going to move in. Walking into the living room, he found Clara and Mac there surrounded by moving boxes and several shopping bags filled to the brim with items Clara was taking with her to her dorm room.

"How's it going?" Harm asked, gingerly stepping around the sea of bags and boxes in order to reach his wife and eldest daughter. Mac was sitting on the sofa, hair tied back in a ponytail, seemingly doing everything. Clara meanwhile, was sprawled out on the carpet in her pajamas, seemingly not doing much at all.

"Oh it's going fine," Mac replied, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "It would help if my helper was doing her job," she looked down and gave Clara a pointed look. Clara, who had her nose stuck in her phone, didn't notice.

"What do you think about this for my dorm room decorations?" she asked, turning her phone around and holding it for Harm and Mac to look at. It was a photo she'd pulled up on Pinterest.

Mac frowned. "Is that a dorm or a hotel room?" she asked.

"It's a dorm room I'm pretty sure," Clara said, sharing Mac's frown as she turned her phone around to look.

"I think you should set your expectations a little lower, sweetie," Mac told her. "And I also think you should help me pack up some of these boxes."

"How much more do you have left?" Harm asked, peering into one box to see most of Clara's closet seemed to have found its way into it. Earlier that morning, he'd peered into Clara's room and was shocked to see how empty it seemed. Secretly he was hoping that there was a bunch of other stuff hidden somewhere that they still had left to pack up.

"We're pretty much done," Mac said, much to Harm's dismay. "Once we pack up the stuff we got from Target, we're good to go."

"Oh don't say that," Harm tried to keep his tone joking. He looked down at Clara, still on her phone. Suddenly, an idea came to him.

"Clara, do you want to go to Target?" he asked.

Mac and Clara both looked at him in surprise. "We don't need anything else from Target, honey," Mac said. It wasn't clear if she was talking to Clara or Harm when she said that. "We've been there almost everyday for the past week-"

"Yeah well, she might need something that she forgot," Harm interjected. Clara watched her parents, trying to decide which one she would listen to. "Maybe walking up and down the aisles might jog her memory-"

"She's literally in her pajamas, Harm."

"I can go to Target in my pajamas," Clara piped up. "I've done it before."

"Exactly," Harm agreed. "Plus, she can change."

Mac frowned. "She can't change. All of her clothes are either in the wash or already packed up."

"It'll be fine," Harm insisted over his shoulder as he walked into the kitchen for his keys, "Come on kiddo, we're going to Target."

Clara and Mac exchanged glances as Harm left the room. They both sighed.

"I don't think he's taking this well," Clara said.

"Yeah," Mac agreed. "He really isn't."

The anger stage of Harm's grief process came on Clara's move-in day. After finally moving all the boxes and bins into Clara's dorm, which wasn't much bigger than what Harm remembered his carrier bunk to be, it was Harm's job to assemble a shelf while Clara and Mac unpacked her clothes.

"When does your roommate move in?" Mac asked she re-folded a pair of jeans using marine precision.

"Tomorrow."

"Are you sure there's enough room in here for two people?" Harm asked, looking around, doubtful. In between the two lofted twin beds there was barely enough room for him to turn around. He was skeptical that this shoebox of a room was good enough for his little girl to call home for the foreseeable future.

"Yeah Daddy, it'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

Clara gave him a pointed look - a look she'd gotten from her mother. "I'm positive."

With a quiet sigh, Harm turned back to the shelf directions, double checking to make sure they were in English. They were - they just happened to be so confusing that he had no clue where to begin. After trying different methods of trying to get the damn thing together, Harm finally gave up, announcing his frustration with a, "Fuck!" loud enough that people walking outside the open door to Clara's room stopped to stare.

"Harm!"

"Dad!"

Mac and Clara both turned around to glare at him. Harm blushed, smiling apologetically at the other family in the hallway. Running his fingers through his graying hair, he looked down at the pieces of the shelf in defeat. He turned to look at Mac and Clara.

"It's this damn shelf," he said. "I can't figure out how to put it together!"

"It's okay, Dad," Clara walked over to him and gently plucked the instructions out of his free hand. "I can put it together tonight."

Harm looked at her in confusion. "But we'll be gone tonight-"

"I think that was her point," Mac said. She looked over Clara's shoulder at the directions. "Looks like it's easy enough to put together; she shouldn't have any trouble."

Harm's eyes widened. "Easy enough? You think this looks easy-"

Mac rolled her eyes. "Harm calm down-"

"I am calm, thank you very much."

The bargaining stage arrived on day three of Clara being away at college. Harm and Mac were laying in bed together, the television playing softly in the background. Mac was reading something on her phone, and Harm, meanwhile, was too lost in his thoughts to do anything.

"I just can't believe it," he said, staring up at the ceiling in despair.

"Believe what?" Mac asked without looking up from her phone.

Harm looked at her incredulously. "Our baby went off to college."'

Mac sighed, sitting her phone down and turning over to face Harm. "I know," she said with a frown. She rested her head on Harm's shoulder. "I miss her too."

"It just feels like yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital," Harm said. It was a day he could picture so clearly in his mind when he closed his eyes, a day that he would remember forever. It also didn't help that he had a picture of it sitting on an end table in the living room to serve as a physical reminder. It was a photo Trish snapped in the hospital. Harm was sitting in a chair in the hospital room, Clara nothing more than a tiny bundle in his arms. Now that bundle was out on her own in the big wide world.

"She'll be alright," Mac assured him, placing a kiss on his cheek. "She's our girl, remember? She knows what she's doing."

Harm said nothing to this, Mac's words doing little to assuage his worry. "What if we convinced her to take a gap year?" he asked, looking at Mac with raised eyebrows. "I don't think it would be too late for her to defer-"

"No."

"What if it was just for a semester?"

"Harm, she's not going to do that," Mac insisted, turning back to look at her phone. "Why would she want to spend another year cooped up with us when she could be out at college doing whatever she wants?"

Harm huffed. "That's exactly why I'm worrying."

Depression came one week after Clara moved in, the first official weekend where she was no longer at home.

When Mac got home from running errands, she found the house oddly quiet. Adam was at track practice for the afternoon, and Lily had gone to a friend's house, but that didn't explain the silence. Harm almost always spent his Saturdays bustling around the house, doing yard work or repairing anything that needed to be fixed. He liked to keep himself busy on weekends, which worked out perfectly because Mac preferred to do nothing.

"Harm?" Mac called as she sat her keys down on the kitchen counter. "Where are you you?"

There was no answer.

"Harm, are you okay?"

Still no answer.

Now considerably worried, Mac began to head upstairs. "If this is a joke, it isn't funny," she said as she headed for their bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, and when she pushed it open Mac was scared for what she may find.

Harm was in there, much to her relief, but Mac was hoping to find him in a better state than the one he was in. Harm was laying face down on his side of the bed, the covers drawn up past his chin despite the warm weather. If he didn't turn over to face away from Mac to acknowledge her presence, she would've gotten worried that he was no longer breathing.

Mac sighed. As much grief as she gave him for being dramatic, Mac couldn't help but feel for her flyboy. He loved being a dad and adored their children; Mac knew from her own experience that watching them grow up was bittersweet.

She sat down on her side of the bed and turned to face Harm, speaking to him before he had the chance to ignore her and continue to wallow in his sadness.

"I know it's hard," Mac said.

"You've told me that already," Harm grumbled, burying his head into his pillow petulantly.

With a sigh, Mac pursed her lips. Getting through to him would be harder than she thought - she should've known this. She would have to try a different tactic.

Mac rested her head on the pillow next to Harm's. "I cried this morning."

Harm lifted his head from the pillow in alarm. "When?" he asked, brow furrowing in concern.

"While I was showering," Mac replied with a simple shrug.

"Why?"

"Because I missed Clara."

Harm frowned. "Oh honey, don't be upset. She'll be fine -" he stopped himself, realizing his hypocrisy mid-sentence. He grinned up at Mac sheepishly. She rolled her eyes affectionately.

"It still sucks though," Mac said, resting her cheek on the top of Harm's head. "Doesn't it?"

"It does," Harm agreed. "I worry about her all the time."

"At least she sends pictures."

"That's not the same as her being here."

"I know."

They sat in silence, Mac now realizing that she was wallowing just as much as Harm was. She reached down to run her fingers through Harm's hair and placed a kiss on his temple. "At least we have four more years before Adam leaves, and seven more with Lily before she leaves."

He scoffed. "Please don't remind me. That's barely any time left."

Mac couldn't say anything because she agreed with him.

Harm was finally able to reach acceptance a month after Clara went away to college, Coincidentally that happened the same weekend she came home to visit for the first time. What made it even better was that Harm didn't know she was coming home - it was a complete surprise orchestrated by Harriet and Mac. Mac went to go pick up Clara at school while Harriet stayed at the Rabb house to distract Harm.

"So, how have you been holding up?" Harriet asked. Her and Harm were sitting on the back porch, drinking their coffee and enjoying the weather. It was still hot and fairly balmy for early September, but it was no longer an unbearable heat. Clara's absence was no longer unbearable for Harm, though it was still hard sometimes. "Sometimes" meaning every single day.

Harm shrugged and sighed. "It's been fine, I guess. I wish it wasn't happening, but it's fine."

Harriet smiled. "Yeah, I get that," she said. "When AJ went to UVA it was rough. But at least Clara's a little closer, right?"

"I wish she was here, though," he said, taking a wistful sip of his coffee.

There was the sound of two car doors shutting in the driveway that Harriet heard, but thankfully Harm didn't pay any mind to it. She would hate for the surprise to be ruined this late.

Harriet watched as she continued to make college-themed small talk with Harm. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Clara move through the kitchen and ease the screen door open, gingerly stepping onto the back deck. Harm and Harriet were sitting in two of the four deck chairs; Harriet was in the one facing the house and Harm was in the one facing the yard. He didn't see Clara until she nonchalantly sat down in one of the spare chairs.

"So what have you two been talking about?" Clara asked, crossing her legs.

Harriet laughed, more at Harm's bewildered expression than anything else. He stared at Clara with wide eyes, as if he was trying to decide if she was actually there.

Clara grinned at him. "Hi Daddy," she waved.

Mac appeared in the doorway, looking all too smug. "Surprise," she said.

"What are you doing here?" Harm asked, jumping to his feet. He whirled around to face Mac. "What is she doing here?"

"I came to visit for the weekend," Clara said. She stood up and walked over to Harm, wrapping her arms around his torso in a hug. "Did you miss me?"

"Did I miss you? Of course I missed you!" Harm responded, returning Clara's hug and wrapping her into a fierce bear hug.

"You can always come visit," Clara looked up at Harm. "Mason's only like a twenty minute drive from here."

In hindsight, Harm would admit that he was acting a little dramatic. It was kind of ridiculous that he was acting like the world was ending because his oldest child moved twenty minutes down the road. Out of all the universities, Clara picked George Mason, which was probably the closest university she could've picked.

"I know, but your mom and I wanted you to get adjusted first," Harm said, giving Mac a pointed look over the top of Clara's head.

They had agreed (it had been Mac's idea) to let Clara be on her own for the first month, so she could adjust without being entirely dependent on her parents. They'd told Clara they were doing this (that part had been Harm's idea) so she wouldn't just think they were throwing her to the wolves.

Harriet got up and walked over to Mac, who was still leaning against the door frame. She'd gotten all of her hugs when she'd picked up Clara at school, so she decided to sit back and let Harm have his moment.

"What is he going to do if Adam or Lily decide to go out-of-state for school?" Harriet asked.

Mac raised her eyebrows. "I don't even want to think about that," she said.

"Why? Because it's too expensive?"

"No - well, yeah, but that's not it," Mac said, looking at Harriet. "It's because I'd miss them too much."

Just a short little update for this lovely Friday! I'm updating The Case right after this, so don't worry. I haven't forgotten the weekly updates already :)

Thank you so much for reading!

-Harper