Now he stood center stage, facing Charice across a display of carefully arranged toys, and his usual theatrical swagger disappeared. He was quieter and more honest.
"I've spent my whole life building cases," he said, and his voice didn't boom the way it usually did. It settled into the space like a confession. "Finding evidence. Proving things beyond a reasonable doubt." He took a step toward her. "But you—I can't prove why you matter. I just know."
No ad-libbed legal metaphors. No corporate merger references. No comparing her organizational skills to quarterly reports.
Just Jack, stripped of his armor, telling Charice that she'd changed him in ways he couldn't explain.
And Charice—practical, unflappable Charice, who'd threatened to step on his foot if he started rambling about tort law—looked at him like she was seeing him clearly for thefirst time. Her smile bloomed slowly, genuinely, the kind of expression you can't fake, no matter how many years you've spent in community theater.
The audience responded before the scene was over. A ripple of delighted applause, quickly hushed.
In the wings, the cast settled into a shared rhythm.
Mrs. Brubaker materialized at my elbow, clipboard forgotten at her side.
"Ben," she whispered. "It's never been like this."
I nodded.
Onstage, Alex caught my eye for a moment as the scene shifted around him. His expression said what I was already feeling:this is what we built.
The orchestra swelled into the Act One finale. The cast moved into position. I understood, watching them, that whatever happened in the second act—whatever came after the curtain call and the hospital visit and the choices that still waited for us—this moment was worth everything.
Intermission passed in a blur of costume adjustments and water bottles and Mrs. Brubaker's whispered notes that nobody really needed. I used the time to check sight lines for the courtroom scene and adjust a flat that had shifted slightly during the parade number.
The house lights dimmed for Act Two. I retreated to my usual spot in the wings, stage left, where I could watch both the action and the audience.
That's when I scanned the front row and found Marcus.
He'd come to the dress rehearsal looking fragile but determined. Tonight, he looked worse—paler, thinner, the baseball cap doing little to hide how the treatment had hollowed his cheeks. His IV pole stood beside him, its metal stand wrapped in silver tinsel that caught the stage lights whenever he shifted in his seat. He fixed his eyes on the stage with the samefierce attention I remembered from the day Alex taught him to dance.
Ryan sat beside him, vibrating with barely contained excitement, whispering something in his friend's ear. Marcus nodded without looking away from where Alex had entered as Kris Kringle, prepared to face the courtroom that would decide whether he was truly Santa Claus.
Noel was there too—I spotted him a few seats down, crutches propped against the armrest, watching his replacement with pride.
The courtroom scene was one of the show's best—a comic setup that pivoted into genuine emotional stakes. The prosecutor hammered away at Kris's claims. The defense scrambled. And then, in a moment of theatrical magic, letters from children across New York began arriving at the courthouse, delivered by postal workers who believed.
Alex played the mounting tension perfectly, his Santa maintaining quiet dignity while the legal chaos swirled around him. When the first mail bag arrived—stuffed with prop letters our ensemble had spent hours addressing and stamping—a murmur of anticipation ran through the house.
The postal workers kept coming. Bag after bag, letter after letter, until they buried the judge's bench in children's hopes made tangible.
And then Alex lifted a single envelope from the pile.
The stage direction called for him to hold it up, showing the audience the address—"Santa Claus, New York City." Simple. Clear. Proof that the post office—an arm of the United States government—officially recognized Kris Kringle as the genuine article.
Alex did something we hadn't rehearsed.
He turned slightly, angling the envelope so the light caught it fully, and his gaze swept across the audience until he found Marcus in the front row.
For a heartbeat, Santa Claus looked directly at a sick boy in a tinsel-wrapped seat and held up proof that believing in something could make it real.
The audience erupted.
Not polite applause—a full-throated roar of recognition and release that shook the old theater's bones. People who'd been watching a pleasant community production suddenly understood they were part of something unique that mattered.
I couldn't look away from Marcus.
His small hand came up to his face, swiping roughly at his cheek. Ryan grabbed his other hand and squeezed, bouncing in his seat. Quiet, shy Marcus, who'd barely spoken when he first arrived at rehearsals, broke into a smile so wide it transformed his whole face.
