“Wow!” I shout, my voice thick with exhaustion. “Santa came!”
“He wrote me a letter back!”
“He did?” I gasp, taking the letter from her hand and pretending to read it. “Wow, kiddo, this is awesome!” I wrap my arms around her in a tight squeeze and plant a kiss to the crown of her head. “Merry Christmas.”
“Can I open them?”
“Knock yourself out, girlfriend,” I say, and I lower myself onto the couch to watch.
My heart swells as I watch her tear into the paper, her face lighting up more and more with each gift she opens. I lean forward with my elbows on my knees and rest my chin on my hands as she tears through all of her gifts, trying to keep up with trash collection so her toys don’t get lost in the mess.
A halfhour goes by while she screams, giggles, and hollers about all of her new things and tells me that Santa brought her everything she asked for.
She doesn’t need to know that Santa saved up since August to make sure that was possible.
I grab a trash bag and start stuffing the torn paper and loose ribbons into it, tie it off and take it outside to the big garbage bin next to the garage.
On the way back into the house, my gaze drops, landing on something I hadn’t noticed when I came out: two stockings – one pink, one printed with characters fromFrozen– each filled to the brim, sitting next to the front door.
“Oh, Dad…”
I lean down to grab them, turning over one of the tags in my hand.
For Rowan
From Santa Claus
I’ve spent almost four months looking at that handwriting. These aren’t from dad, they’re from Colt. Tears spring to my eyes and I’m honestly not sure which feeling is more prevalent – the pain of the realization that Dad is fully not present for Christmas, or the happiness at the realization that Colt really cares. Not just about me, but about my sister, too.
I lift the stockings, one in each arm, and carry them into the living room.
“Santa’s bag must have been too heavy,” I tell her, “he had to leave these outside!”
“Stockings!” She screams, running over to grab the one labeled with her name.
She sits on the floor again and tears into it, pulling out candy, a makeup set, a slime kit, hair accessories, the listgoes on. My hand clutches over my chest as I watch her. It’s so obvious that he searched ‘stocking stuffers for little girls,’ but he fully committed, and if I didn’t already have a crush on him, there’s zero doubt in my mind about it, now.
I pull a few things out of mine – dark chocolates - bitter like his coffee, colorful pens, a candle. When I reach the bottom, I feel something huge, for a stocking. I pull it out, revealing a large water bottle with the times of the day on one side, the other printed with ‘I am optimistic because today is a new day.’ Sitting just beneath it is a small notebook, titledThe Little Book of Manifesting.
My face nearly splits in two from the smile that breaks out across it and I have to fight back a full-body giggle. He’s been listening to me. He’s actually been paying attention.
TEN
Colt
Every year, Davis and I have spent Christmas together. It started when we first moved to the city – he was living on his own for the first time and unable to get home for the holidays, so my family invited him to join us, and the tradition has stuck ever since.
The past couple of years, it’s been just the two of us; between Emmett being grown and having the option to spend the holiday with his friends or me, and my parents being gone, the table has gotten empty. We adopted the tradition a few years ago of a catered meal and an open door policy – if anyone comes by in need of a hot meal, some company, or a warm spot by the fireplace, they’ve got it.
Davis sits across from me, picking at his plate, and I notice him staring at me with a thoughtful expression across his face.
“What?” I ask.
“You’ve just been…nicer,” he says. “It’s weird.”
“I’m always nice.”
He quirks a brow at me, as if to suggest that I’m lying. “Buddy, I love ya, but…”
