Victor – A Monster’s Diary – Entry 18 – David’s Visit

Dear Diary,

David was late showing up and I was freaking out, thinking that he wasn’t going to show up. Even Shadow knew something was up because he hid under the sofa in the study. That was unusual for him because he never hides.

Finally, I heard the knock at the door. I had an instant panic attack. I was so nervous. My hand shook when I opened the door. My knees felt weak and I almost stumbled in the hallway.

“Hello old man,” said David, as he walked past me, when I finally had the courage to open the door.

I took David into the study. He sat down on the sofa and I could see Shadow’s bright yellow eyes staring out at me from between David’s legs.

I asked David if he would like a cup of tea and when he said yes, I went into the kitchen to make it. I guess when I left the room, Shadow came out of his hiding spot because I could hear David talking to him. I brought the tray of tea and cookies and was surprised to see Shadow on David’s lap. Maybe that was a good sign.

I asked David what he knew about me. David said he knew that I had some kind of spell put on me and that I was pretty old. I asked him where he had heard that from and David said that story had been passed down from one generation to another.

I asked David how he thought we were related and he told me that he would be my great-great-great-great-grandson. His mother was Isabella, her mother was Georgette, her mother was Stella, her mother was Helen and her mother was Emily.

When he said the name Emily, I openly cried. Emily was my daughter, my baby girl. I hadn’t heard another person utter her name in 160 years. It brought back so many memories of Emily as a baby. Oh, how I have missed her and it was strange how much pain I felt after all these years.

I asked David what he knew about Emily and her brother, Joshua and if he knew anything about my wife, Joan. He didn’t know anything about Joan, but he did have photos of Emily and Joshua. He showed them to me and again I cried. There were my two babies. They would have been in their 20’s in that photograph but they were definitely my two babies. That photograph confirmed that David and I were related. I was actually talking to a real life relative.

I found out that Emily and Joshua grew up in California so Joan must have taken them there when she left me. Joshua died shortly after that photograph was taken. He had scarlet fever and became quite ill. David wasn’t sure if Joshua had any children but he didn’t think he did. Emily had one daughter, Helen. Emily died during childbirth. It saddened me to hear that both Emily and Joshua died at so young of an age and by the sounds of it, they both suffered terribly.

Helen was apparently raised by her grandmother. David and I both came to the conclusion that the grandmother would have been Joan. I could see Joan taking Emily’s only child and raising her. That was just how caring and loving  Joan was.

Helen’s father was never mentioned and when David did the family research, he found no marriage records for Emily and on Helen’s birth information, the father was listed as unknown.

I was shocked to hear that my Emily, my baby, had a baby out of wedlock. To David’s generation, that wasn’t a big deal, but when Emily was growing up, she would have been shamed by the community.

David had done a lot of research on the family and his research answered a lot of questions that had been burning in my mind all these years. As much as I needed to know about what happened to my family, I never realized how much it would hurt and believe me, it did hurt. I think knowing that I was able to live a very, very long life and the knowledge that I could still live another 300 years or so, made me very sad to think that both my children died so young.

David asked me about my life. I told him about the spell Helga put on me 160 years ago. I told him how I loved living alone but how I regret having forced Joan to leave me and take the children with her.

I asked David about his life, his mother and any siblings he had. His mother, Isabella, was alive and well. He has not told her about me yet because he didn’t want to say anything until he knew for sure that I was related to them. David told me that he was sure that his mother would be very happy to meet me.

David himself was in university. He was still fairly young and hasn’t decided what he is going to do with his life yet. He is considering becoming a doctor. He is single although that he hopes will change soon because he does have a girl he is very much in love with.

I asked David if he knew how the family ended up back in Canada and from what he could tell, Helen ended up marrying a Canadian.

I thanked David for the visit and that night, I could not sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about the stories that David had told me. David said he would stay in touch and that he would contact me after he talked to his mother.

V