Page 10

"I'll tell her Santa's working on it."

He sorts the pile while I wrap a set of watercolors for a customer who drifts in. When I come back, Arch is holding a sheet of notebook paper, and he isn't sorting anymore. He's just sitting there with it.

"What?" I ask.

He hesitates. Then he turns it around and slides it across the counter to me.

The handwriting is careful, the letters too big, pressed hard into the paper.

“Dear Santa,” I read out loud. “I don't need presents this year. Please can we keep our house? Mom says we might have to sell it after Christmas. I like my room. Love, Kenzie, age 8.”

My stomach drops. Cold spreads through my hands.

I know how this letter ends. It ends in January with boxes. It ends with a mother saying it'll work out, and a kid who stops asking for things, because she learns that asking doesn't change anything.

"Do you know who she is?" I ask.

"There are two Kenzies in Copper Peak." He uncaps the pen. "Only one of them is eight."

I set the paper down very carefully, as though it might break.

"What are you going to write back?" I ask. My voice comes out thin.

"I don't know yet."

"Santa will fix it," I say. "That's what you'll write. Santa's elves are working on it. Don't worry, sweetheart."

He looks at me. "No."

"No?"

"I don't lie in these." He picks up the letter again and smooths it flat on the counter. "Santa doesn't fix houses. I won't promise her one."

"Then what do you tell her?"

He's quiet a long moment. Then he pulls a pad of thick cream paper out from under the counter, uncaps a pen, and starts to write. I shouldn't read it upside down. I do anyway.

Dear Kenzie. Santa can't fix grown-up things like houses. I wish I could. But I know where you live this Christmas, and I'll know where you live next Christmas too, wherever that is. Your room is a good room because you're in it. Your mom is lucky to have you. Love, Santa.

He signs it with a big looping S. He folds it in thirds and tucks it in an envelope, then reaches for the rubber stamp.

My eyes sting. I blink hard and look at the paper rolls on the wall.

Nobody ever wrote that to me. Nobody ever told me the truth and stayed in the room anyway.

"That's—" I stop. Swallow. "That's a good letter."

"It's an honest one." He stamps the envelope. NORTH POLE, in red ink. "Kids know when you're lying to them. They figure it out eventually, and then they don't believe anything you say."

"You sound sure."

"I am." He sets the envelope on the finished pile. "You wrote one once."

It isn't a question.

"How do you know that?"

"You read Kenzie's letter like you already knew how it ended."