Laire’s Christmas Journal

The First Christmas

Dear Erik,

You bought me this journal for sketching on the best day of my life: our perfect day at the Elizabethan Gardens. That was the day you told me you were falling in love with me, and though I didn’t say the words, I knew they were true for me too. I said them three days later at my father’s fish shop. You came to tell me that you were going up to Raleigh for a few days the only way you knew how.

My God, what an actor you were! What an actor you are. I can’t stop my tears from falling when I think of those precious days with you, because, whoever you are, you aren’t the Erik I fell in love with. You are a stranger to me. Wholly. Completely. When I think of you now, I call you the Governor’s Son in my mind. I will hate you until the day I die. I promise you that.

But I am not writing to the Governor’s Son; I am writing this to my Erik—to the man I knew. Even though he doesn’t actually exist, I loved him. I still do. It’s likely that I always will.

I write these words to him because, no matter how faithless you were to me, Governor’s Son, I was my truest self with my Erik.

That day in the hospital when I called us a fantasy, I was lying. I was a frightened girl lying to the boy she loved desperately, hoping that by giving up what she loved most in the world, the trade would assuage God’s fury and let her father live.

It worked, to some extent.

My father lived, though in a cruel twist, I still lost him. He never trusted me again and could barely look me in the eyes without shame.

And the Erik I loved turned out to be a fantasy, so I have lost him too.

But I cannot live in a world as brutal and unkind, as faithless and fickle as that of the Governor’s Son. I won’t allow myself to be hardened. I won’t let his poison touch my life. After all, I barely knew him. I can choose to separate him from the Erik I lost.

That Erik, that good, kind, loving, tender man, is preserved in my heart, just as he would be if I had lost him to a tragic accident that terrible Thanksgiving night. That’s the Erik I write to here. To the man I knew . . . because, to me, he was real. And I will write to you, my Erik, until I stop grieving your loss. Hopefully, one day, I will have the courage and strength to love again.

I need you to know that I am pregnant with your child.

I found out yesterday that she’s a girl, and I plan to name her Ava Grace like the little girl we met that day at the Elizabethan Gardens. I saw her on the ultrasound yesterday, and she has ten fingers and ten toes and I can’t wait to see if her hair’s dark like yours or red like mine.

Ava Grace is only one of several major changes in my life. Another is that I now live in Boone, far away from the Outer Banks, in the hills of Appalachia. Thanksgiving was Ms. Sebastian’s last night of work at the Pamlico House. After I left your house, I ran to her, and when she got off work, we drank tea across from each other at her kitchen table. Surrounded by moving boxes, she invited me to leave the Banks and join her in Boone. I had no other options, so I did.

We live in a little house with views of the mountains. It’s near her son, Patrick, who’s got shaggy brown hair and kind eyes and is a professor of English at Appalachian State University. Her spare bedroom is my room, and soon it will be Ava Grace’s nursery too.

I don’t know how I will ever repay Ms. Sebastian’s kindness, but if there is ever a chance, I will take it. She is so much more than a friend, sometimes I imagine my own mother sent her to me as an angel to look after me on this journey. I am so thankful for her.

I called my sister Kyrstin the day after Thanksgiving. She wasn’t surprised to hear that things didn’t work out between me and the Governor’s Son. She wished me luck and said she would tell Daddy that I had run away. Believe it or not, Erik, that lie will be much kinder than the reality that I’m unmarried and expecting your child.

I have a job at Harris Teeter, a really nice grocery store in Boone. After I have the baby, I may try to find another waitressing position. My tips at the Pamlico House were good.

Ava Grace wiggles inside me all the time, and I cry myself to sleep, missing you and mourning your loss and dreaming of your face. Those dreams are brutal, reminding me in such minute detail of the way you touched me, Erik—the way you looked at me and told me you loved me. I miss you so much, it eats me up inside, but you are gone, and the only way I can survive your loss is to imagine you are dead.

My tears are smearing the ink so I will close now.

Merry Christmas, my Erik.

Laire

***

The Second Christmas

Dear Erik,

So much has happened in a year, it’s hard to imagine it’s been that long since I opened the journal and wrote to you, but I will try to fill you in on all that’s happened.

We have a daughter, Ava Grace Cornish, who’s seven months old and the happiest baby you’ve ever seen. And why shouldn’t she be happy? Ms. Sebastian (aka Nana and Judith) dotes on her like the grandmother she lost so long ago, and Uncle Patrick has probably purchased every stuffed animal to be found in Boone. They cover her nursery (my old room) and my room (the spare room, now mine) and Judith’s room (Nana wouldn’t have it any other way), and Ava laughs and laughs when we make them dance and squeak.

She laughs all the time, Erik, and she has your smile.

She has your dark eyes too.

And your beautiful, regal nose.

But she lucked out (!) and got my red hair. You can’t win ’em all!

She is my shining light and the joy of my life, and no matter what happened with the Governor’s Son, I will always be grateful to you, my Erik, for giving her to me.

After I had her, I had some very tough days, missing my father and sisters, and, of course, you. At one point, I had a notion of driving to Duke and presenting Ava Grace to the Governor’s Son. But Judith showed me some pictures of him on Google. She showed me a picture of him holding hands with Vanessa Osborn at a Duke formal, and another of him at his sister’s graduation from high school in June.

Most painful of all, she showed me a picture of the Governor’s Son kissing Vanessa Osborn at a party in Raleigh the same July I was falling in love with you, Erik. It was crushing, of course. It was evidence of everything the Governor’s Wife had told me that terrible Thanksgiving: he’d been with Van and me at the same time. And in the end, he’d chosen Van.

After that, I put away foolish notions of driving to Duke or ever reaching out to the Governor’s Son. I reminded myself that I never knew him. And I forced myself to move on for Ava’s sake.

My Christmas cards to my father and Issy were returned to sender unopened this year, just as they were last year, but Kyrstin’s wasn’t returned. I hope and pray that someday my father and sisters will forgive me and find space for me and my daughter in their lives again.

I feel like I need to say that I know you’re not real, Erik. I know you never existed. I still dream of you all the time, but my memories aren’t as sharp as they were a year ago. And that helps. But only a little. Sometimes I feel like I will grieve the loss of you for the rest of my life, Erik. I still long for you—for the man I loved so much—in a constant, aching way, wishing you could see and know our daughter. Her soft coos of pleasure. The way she hums when I feed her smashed yams. How much she loves the pool at the college. The sweet smell of her head when she falls asleep in my arms.

Judith has asked me to set the table, and since Ava is finally napping, I guess I should. But I wanted to write my annual letter to you before the day got away.

I miss you.

I miss you.

Merry Christmas, my Erik.

Laire

***

The Third Christmas

Dear Erik,

I thought about not writing this year, about tearing up this stupid journal and throwing it in Judith’s fireplace. I don’t know why I didn’t. There are only a couple dozen pages written, and it’ll take years to fill them all. Maybe I’m keeping it as a record for Ava Grace. Or maybe knowing this journal exists lets me keep you in a box I only open once a year. For whatever reason, the journal survived. And so here I am, exhausted after a very long and exciting Christmas Day, writing to you, my imaginary boyfriend who never actually existed.

Gyah. It’s crazy. I know. I know.

Ava Grace is nineteen months old. Nineteen months. I can’t believe it some days.

She said “Mama” at nine months old and “Nana” and “Unca” (for Patrick) at twelve months, and started walking at fourteen months. She zips around so fast now, we all have to be careful what we leave out because she gets into everything. She’s tall, and her red hair (which has grown in much darker than mine ever was—your genes) curls around her collar. She says “Me want yoos” for orange juice and “Kitty Found,” for Judith’s cat, Flounder. Her favorite book character is Biscuit. Her favorite music is by Laurie Berkner.

Now I’m just rambling.

Oh, here’s something new!

I started college in September, if you can believe it. Yes, I did. I saved up over $3,000 the summer I worked at the Pamlico House, and another $10,000 working at Harris Teeter. Since Judith refuses to take rent or board (stubborn, beloved Judith), I am quite flush and could easily pay my tuition.

I am four months into my first year, and I’m majoring in fashion design and merchandising. Yes, I wanted to go to up North, but Nana is here and Nana babysits for Ava, so here is where I stay. LOL. Patrick gives me a ride to school every day and brings me home in the afternoons. He has been such a good friend to me, taking me out to meet some of his friends, though I am twelve years younger, and certainly he must feel about me as he would a much younger sister. But his eyes are still kind and his hair is still wild, and when he sings Ava Grace to sleep, my heart clenches a little.

Mostly because I miss you.

Mostly because I wish it was you.

Impossible, I know. Imaginary characters can’t sing little girls to sleep.

She points to Patrick sometimes and says, “Dada,” and we’re all quick to say “No, Ava. Unca!” but it makes me realize that she will ask questions someday, and what will I tell her about you?

Maybe I will say that once upon a time, Mama fell in love with a dark-haired prince who lived in a castle on the beach. That’s close to the truth, isn’t it? Certainly I can never, ever tell her about the Governor’s Son. A lump, half sorrow and half hate, still rises up in my throat when I think about him.

A few months ago, when I opened an account for myself, I searched for him on Facebook. Since we aren’t Facebook friends, I couldn’t see much of his page, aside from four or five profile pictures: he was just as beautiful as I remembered, with dark, thick hair and brown eyes. But his face was hard and his eyes were cold. I wondered if he’d changed, or if I had. Were his eyes always that cold and I’d never noticed? Because in my memory they are warm and lively. I don’t know. I guess I never will. But the overwhelming sadness in my heart made me cry for several nights in a row after Ava was asleep, so I promised myself not to look at his Facebook account again for a long, long time.

My father returned his Christmas card unopened again this year, but Issy and Kyrstin didn’t. In fact, Kyrstin called me yesterday, on Christmas Eve, and we spoke for the first time in over two years. It was awkward, of course, but still felt like progress. Issy has a second son now named Konnor. And Kyrstin and Remy have finally opened Château le Poisson. She sounded very proud. I hope it does well.

I miss you.

My memories fade a little, but my feelings don’t. My heart can’t seem to stop loving you. And when I dream of you, my Erik, I can hear your deep voice, your tender words in my ear . . . Freckles . . . darlin’ . . . I love you, Laire . . . I love you . . . love you . . .

I wake up with a wet pillow and a heavy heart.

I long for the day when it doesn’t hurt anymore.

I fear it too, because then you’ll truly be gone and I’ll be all alone.

Merry Christmas, my Erik.

Laire

***

The Fourth Christmas

Dear Erik,

I have resigned myself to this annual tradition: sitting down with this journal and writing to you—you being the memory of a boyfriend who never actually existed. #Sick. Great, Laire. And I know it’s stupid, and probably a psychiatrist would tell me I’m a nutjob, but I can’t help it. I want to record my thoughts once a year. You were such a big part of my life, and I want to talk to you, and this is the only way I can.

Without you, I wouldn’t have had Ava, wouldn’t have left the Banks, wouldn’t be in my second year of college. When I pick up this journal, I feel like a widow writing thoughts to her dead husband, and maybe that’s wrong, but it’s also really, really comforting. And it isn’t hurting anyone, after all, is it?

Our Ava is two and a half now, and the terrible twos are no joke. Where did my smiling, laughing, happy baby go? This new Ava bucks ferociously when I try to buckle her car seat, throws her once-beloved yams on the floor, and terrifies Flounder. Just last week, she lay down on the floor at Kohl’s and made a ruckus about getting the red velvet party dress instead of the green I’d chosen. She pulled a handful of dresses off the rack and stomped on them to make her point. That got her no dress, a swat on the backside, and an early bedtime.

I adore her, Erik. I love her so much, even her fiery spirt and tantrums, because she’s strong. She knows her mind. She asks for what she wants. She is so different from me—from her mother, who was scared to take a job, once upon a time, for fear it would ruffle her father’s feathers. I barely recognize that girl anymore. She was so sheltered. So young. So naive.

Judith takes Ava to and from preschool twice a week, and they are the best of friends, Nana and Ava. Up until the end of this past semester, Patrick still drove me to and from school each day, though I should be able to buy my own car after the New Year. I have started designing again in earnest and selling some clothes to my classmates. I’ve even captured the attention of some of the senior professors, one of whom went to Parsons in New York. She asked if she could send some of my designs to a friend of hers in London—a Madame Scalzo—and I almost died. I’m sure nothing will come of it, but it felt awfully good.

There’s been another major development: Patrick asked me to marry him two weeks ago.

I feel like I betray you even by sharing this news, and though I owe you nothing at all, I want you to know that I never slept with Patrick. I did kiss him once or twice, though, more out of loneliness than anything. He’s so kind and good to us—he’s been the only father figure Ava has ever known. But I found myself comparing his kisses to yours, and I knew I wasn’t falling in love with him even though he was, apparently, falling for me. He said that the engagement could just be a promise, and we could grow into our love for each other. He would adopt Ava, and we could move to his larger house near campus. It would have been a good life, Erik, but I . . . I just . . .

Tears were wetting the page so I stopped writing, and now I’m back.

I couldn’t say yes. I couldn’t. I hate myself for admitting this, but I’m still in love with you—with the memory of you. And until I feel that sort of forever love with someone again, I don’t want to be married. I know how it feels to love with every fiber of my being, how it feels to believe, truly believe, that a man loves me as much as I believed you did.

I know it’s unlikely that lightning will strike twice.

But I won’t marry anyone unless I love him and trust him as much as I did you, my Erik, and I know it’s unlikely I shall ever meet with a love that strong again.

After a great deal of thinking, I’ve decided that I will be a career woman—a good mother to Ava, of course, but also a woman who designs couture fashions for the best houses in New York or Paris or London. I don’t how long it will take, but I will make it happen. I will fall in love with my work. I will make a good, solid, happy life for my daughter. And it will be enough.

I promised myself I wouldn’t, but over the summer, I Googled the Governor’s Son. Do you remember, all those years ago, when you asked me not to Google you? I never did. But now I’ve Googled him.

I don’t know what to make of what I read and saw.

He is in his third year at law school and being urged to run for state senate next year.

I saw him dressed up for many fashionable events in Raleigh. Always with a different woman. All of them stunning. None of them appearing twice.

I remember, many years ago, when I worked at King Triton, that I could tell when a fish was dead on delivery because its eyes were blank and dull. Your eyes, my Erik, were brown and deep, sparkling with humor and love and tenderness. The Governor’s Son has dead eyes.

And I wish it didn’t, but it made me sorry to see it.

That said, it didn’t make me cry.

Merry Christmas, my Erik.

Laire

***

The Fifth Christmas

Dear Erik,

I write to you from my hotel balcony in Paris.

Yes, Paris.

I have been here for two weeks, and though I have loved every moment, I have missed Ava Grace with an ache that borders on panic, and when I leave tomorrow—Christmas Eve—to fly home, I will be so happy to hold her in my arms once again.

This is the longest I have ever been away from her, but when Madame Scalzo, who taught a one-semester course in European trends, announced she needed an assistant to join her at the annual Noël à Paris fashion show, I put my hat in the ring and was chosen. Once I found out, I almost turned it down, but Judith and Samantha, Patrick’s fiancée, insisted that, between the three of them, they could manage Ava Grace’s schedule and that I shouldn’t pass up a chance like this one.

I have loved Paris. So much. But I have missed North Carolina desperately. My surrogate family, of course, but most of all, our daughter.

How can I describe her to you, Erik?

Let’s see . . . she has a fringe of bangs across her forehead and wears her hair in two dark-red braids that Nana fastens every morning with twin rubber bands the same color as the outfit she’s wearing. She is tall like you, but slight like me. She still has your grin and your warm, brown eyes. She hasn’t lost any teeth yet, though Katie, Ava’s best friend at preschool, just lost her first, and Ava is desperate to be next. She’s like that—wanting to keep up. Wanting to be first, or at least next. I wonder how that quality will develop? As ambition and drive? I hope so.

She is musical and artistic, and she loves her ballet class more than anything. It was at ballet class, in fact, where Uncle Patrick met Ava’s instructor, Miss Samantha. She’s Ava’s ballet instructor and, now, soon-to-be auntie. They are good together, Patrick and Samantha, and she has become one of my closest friends. Not to mention, Patrick has a dashing new haircut. Turns out, he was very handsome under all that scruff. Maybe I should have married him when he asked! LOL!

My father had a stroke in October, and though I wanted to go see him, Issy and Kyrstin insisted it wasn’t time yet. But my card to him wasn’t returned this year, so I hope he is softening. Kyrstin, who’s made the Château le Poisson into a thriving little getaway inn, says he only works at King Triton now. The stroke stole his upper body strength, which makes it all but impossible for him to crab. Maybe by next summer my sisters will tell me that I’ve been forgiven and that he’s ready to meet Ava and know me again. I pray every night that it will be so. The Sebastians have truly been family to me these past five years, but I miss my father and sisters. I want time with them before time runs out.

And now I’m sad, and Paris, the City of Light, is nowhere to be sad, especially on your last night. I worked hard to lose most of my Corey accent and have been taking French for two years at college. My French isn’t good, but passable, and yet I’m constantly asked if I’m from Australia. LOL. I guess that accent isn’t totally gone, after all.

This is the first year I didn’t look up the Governor’s Son.

Not once.

Not at all.

Even my dreams of you, Erik, come less and less frequently, and when they do, I don’t wake up crying.

I will always miss you, of course.

But it doesn’t hurt as desperately as it did before.

And for that, I am grateful.

Merry Christmas, Erik.

Laire

***

The Sixth Christmas

Dear Erik,

I have an hour to write—Ava is a sheep in her ballet recital tonight, and Patrick is picking up me and Judith soon.

Judith. My Judith, my surrogate mother, my daughter’s only grandparent, has been diagnosed with cancer. It is quite advanced, and the doctor’s prognosis was not good. When we first learned of her condition over the summer, I railed and cried, furious at God for letting this happen again. But then I remembered that my mother brought Judith to me when I needed her. She was there for me when I had no one else. So now I will be the strong daughter that Judith needs during these final months. Ava and I will make them as happy as possible.

Ava is in her final year of preschool, bubbly and beautiful, a minx some days, and yet so vulnerable others, she breaks my heart. I love her to the moon and back, though I find myself sorting out which traits are from the Cornish family and which must have come from yours. When she bats her eyes at Uncle Patrick and gets her way, it’s you. When she refuses to jump off the diving board because she’s “ascared,” it’s me. And damn, but I won’t have my daughter be scared like I was. (Between you and me? I pushed her off that diving board, then jumped in right behind her.)

She finally asked about you in earnest, and Erik, I was so flummoxed for a minute, I just stared at her with my mouth open. But then I told her about the prince with dark hair and dark eyes. I said Mama loved him and he loved Mama. She asked when she could meet you, and tears filled my eyes when I told her that the prince was gone. She asked if he was dead, and internally I had to acknowledge that Ava’s biological father, the Governor’s Son, is still alive. But I won’t ever share her with him. Never, ever. So I lied. I told her I didn’t know. And the most amazing thing happened: she nodded her head and went off to play with her LEGOs. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I had just dodged a bullet. Oh, Erik, one day she will be eight, or twelve, or fifteen, and what in the world will I say then if she wants to know her father? What will I do when I am certain he will only break her heart as he did mine? I can barely think about it—it makes my chest tight.

I will graduate in June, but I have already received an offer to work with a design firm in New York (remember Madame Scalzo? She offered me a junior designer job at the House of Scalzo!) with a salary I can barely believe. I have accepted the job on the condition that Judith’s health is my first priority. 

My father’s health appears to be stable, from what Issy and Kyrstin tell me, and Kyrs is pregnant with her first child, while Issy is expecting her third. I long to introduce my own daughter to her aunts and cousins. Maybe someday.

If you were real, I would ask you to pray for Judith.

The Governor’s Son ran for state senate in November, although he lost to the incumbent. A familiar face was near his on the steps of the capitol when he conceded defeat: Van’s. Vanessa Osborn. I haven’t seen a picture of them together in years, but there she was, looking beautiful beside him.

I wonder, sometimes, if they are happy together.

And then I think they’re probably not, because his eyes still look dead to me.

Not that it matters to me at all. Not anymore.

I miss you, Erik, but there are only ten pages left in this old journal, enough for one more Christmas. I read somewhere that it takes seven years to grieve the loss of a spouse, and for all intents and purposes, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve grieved your loss. I’ve dreamed of you. I’ve missed you.

The memories are fading fast now.

And though a part of me will always miss you, I find I’m almost ready to let you go.

Merry Christmas.

Laire

***

The Seventh Christmas

Dear Erik,

This will be my last entry in this old journal.

What a long way I’ve come from the scared eighteen-year-old who arrived in Boone with a woman she barely knew, about to have a baby, her heart utterly broken by the man of her dreams. I wonder if I’d recognize that girl now if I saw her. I don’t know. I hope so.

Our Ava is officially a kindergartner and the smartest little girl you’ve ever seen. She wears two neat pigtails in her auburn hair every day and loves her teacher, Miss Horwath, to death. She will miss her when we move.

In related news, we are moving.

Dear Judith made it until summertime, when she passed away quietly in her sleep after a perfect day in the mountains with me, Ava, Patrick, and Samantha. She knew that Patrick and Samantha were expecting a baby boy they planned to name Jude, and though she deeply grieved not being able to meet her grandson, I know she was comforted by the loving relationship she’d had with Ava.

We buried her on the Fourth of July weekend. July, August, and September were very difficult for me. I even called Madame Scalzo and retracted my acceptance of the position in New York. I told her that the idea of moving to an unknown place was too overwhelming. With her usual pluck, she told me that the job was mine until the New Year, and if I wanted to work remotely from North Carolina for a while, I could.

You see, when Judith passed, she left the house in Boone to Patrick and her condo in Hatteras to me. To be honest, I didn’t even realize she still had the condo in Hatteras, but she’d rented it all these years, keeping it, she said, for me. Before she died, she encouraged me to return to the Banks. She said that I should patch things up with my family before it was too late. She said it was time for me to go home. Not forever. Just as long as it would take to make amends.

Throughout the fall, I weighed my options. Patrick insisted I could stay at the house in Boone for however long I wanted to, and I know Samantha was hoping we’d stay indefinitely so that their Jude and my Ava could be cousins. But Judith was ever and always right.

It’s time for me to go home and make things right with my father and sisters.

Our things are packed, and my new (used) Jeep Grand Cherokee is bursting at the seams. I have been working (remotely) for Madame Scalzo since September and will continue to do so when Ava and I move to the Banks and sort out Judith’s condo. I send up my designs weekly, though I sense she’d prefer to have me in New York full-time.

Ava has cried a million tears about leaving Nana’s house, and saying good-bye to Uncle Patrick and Aunt Samantha this evening was a nightmare, but they’ve promised to come and visit with baby Jude this spring. I will miss them. I will miss them so much.

I don’t plan to stay long in Hatteras. In fact, by next summer, I want to move to New York so that Ava and I can start our new life there. But I need to take this time to reconcile with my family. I need Ava to know where her mama grew up, and though I plan to say as little as possible, I need for her to know where her parents spent one remarkable, beautiful summer together, before her mother’s beautiful dream came crashing down.

It’s time for us to say good-bye, Erik.

It’s time for me to move on now.

So here it is:

Good-bye, my Erik.

Good-bye, my love.

Laire