Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(77)

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





PART II


Post-Christmas Storm hits OBX

By Abby O’Shea

December 27—A powerful nor’easter dumped upwards of two feet of snow on the Outer Banks last night, leaving in its wake ocean overwash, ice and wind damage.

Parts of N.C. Highway 12 in Kitty Hawk were closed this morning due to standing water and debris that was pushed up from the beach at high tide.

Heavy overwash and damage to many motels and summer homes have been reported on N.C. 12 on the north end of Buxton.