A Christmas Mystery

I wake up at 7:21 in the morning two Thursdays before Christmas.

For the past two years, I haven’t set my alarm, but I’ve gradually begun going to bed earlier, so I’m naturally waking up earlier too. Starting my mornings between seven and eight always feels best, and I’m pleased when I check the time on the wooden clock carved with birds on the wall across from my bed.

It’s my 753rd morning waking up alone after Chris, my fiancé, died in a car accident three weeks before our wedding date. For the first year, I always woke up with a heavy weight in my gut even when I wasn’t consciously sad. But that’s slowly been changing—lightening—and this morning I feel really good.

I’m back in Green Valley, North Carolina. My hometown. I’ll be here through Christmas and New Year’s Day, and I’m excited about the next three weeks.

Not about the holidays. All the artificial excitement and festivities don’t appeal to me anymore.

And not about encountering a slew of old acquaintances, none of whom know me as the person I am now. They only know me as Chris’s girl. Then his fiancée. Maya Alexander. The absent-minded, artsy-crafty one who could never complete projects or even hold a regular job for more than a few months at a time.

But I am excited about seeing Tee, my great-aunt who raised me from the age of seven, and my cousin, Daniela.

I’m also excited about solving the mystery of my secret pen pal who’s been sending me messages for almost a year but refuses to identify himself.

The only thing I know for sure is that he’s a man and that he lives in Green Valley. He appears to have a history there, so he likely went to school with me.

Green Valley kids tend not to leave town, and if they do leave, they eventually move back. I would still be living there too had I not lost Chris and desperately needed to get away.

So my pen pal is probably a Green Valley local—born and raised and still living in town.

Before I take off again after New Year’s, I’m going to find out who he is.

I’m lying in bed, mulling over my plans for the next three weeks, when Claude climbs the stairs to my bedroom loft, leaps onto the mattress, and walks up my body to peer into my face with his intelligent gold eyes.

Claude is my Bombay cat—sleek and black and eerily clever. He’s a dramatic contrast to Ed, my big, fluffy orange tabby who is currently curled up, snoring on the second pillow beside my head.

“I’m getting up,” I tell Claude, who is ready for breakfast and disapproves of my sloth. “You don’t have to glare at me like that. You can’t be that hungry.”

At the sound of my voice—or maybe at the word “hungry”—Ed lifts his head and squints at me.

“I know. It’s breakfast time.”

That’s enough to motivate even Ed to heft himself onto all four paws. With a sigh, I sit up, taking care not to hit my head on the low slope of the loft’s ceiling. I pull on an oversized sweater over my pajamas and then climb down the stairs carefully since they are narrow and built right against the wall.

The small kitchen is under the loft, so the ceiling is low there too. I slice a lemon and add half to a glass of water before going outside to walk as I drink it.

Mid-December in North Carolina is often fairly mild. It’s in the high forties this morning, and the sun is starting to rise. It’s brisk but not uncomfortable beside the lake. I walk around the campground until I’ve finished my glass of water, clearing my mind and taking deep breaths in a way I’ve practiced every morning since Chris died.

Early on, this form of meditation was the only way I could keep myself from crawling back into bed to cry for the rest of the day, but now it mostly helps begin my days with a peaceful, settled heart.

Theo Humphrey would probably call it trendy, empty spiritualism. I was into crystals for a year after college, and Theo always eyed them disapprovingly. He was Chris’s best friend ever since kindergarten, and he thought I was too silly and frivolous to be a good match for his friend.

Chris was hardworking and practical, but he never cared that I was different. That I love crafting and thrifting and art and unusual mental health habits and ritual and deep spirituality. Chris loved me for who I am and wanted me to pursue whatever made me happy, but Theo never understood. He still doesn’t.

Of all the people in Green Valley I don’t want to see over the holidays, Theo is at the top of the list.