Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(75)

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 Chateau 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.