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Chapter One
Faith
It had been twelve years since I had last walked through the gates into Merryland’s Santa Depot, and I was doing so tonight with mixed feelings. I wasn’t sure I wanted to feel the excitement, or magic in the air, but it was hard not to get sucked into the festive atmosphere around me. The colorful lights twinkled from every direction, while the decorations crowded the edges of the sidewalks. Music floated through the air from the open doors of the shops, and carolers wandered along the cobblestones. From where I stood, at least half a dozen songs collided in my ears, and I felt overwhelmed by sight, sound, and memories—oh, the bittersweet memories!
“Wow, Mom!” I turned to my five-year-old son, Luke. “This is awesome! Is this where Santa lives?”
“Um, no, he lives in the North Pole; this is just where he comes to work.”
“And we are going to see him, right?”
“Yep, that’s the plan,” I told him with forced enthusiasm. I was all for him sitting on Santa’s lap and telling him what he wanted for Christmas; I just hated that he was going to be disappointed. Between my finances and the hottest new Mighty Mark Conquers the Ocean playset that he asked for—along with every other boy his age—there was no way I could get it for him.
When the set first released, it was seventy dollars. I had hesitated the one time that I’d had it in my hands and walked out of the store without it. I had hoped it would go on sale before Christmas, and it had, only I didn’t know that you had to be camped in front of the store two hours before it opened to get one.
Now you couldn’t find the set, and if you could, the price was almost double from scammers who had bought all the playsets they could get their greedy hands on to make a profit. Those people deserved a special Christmas present in their stocking, and it wasn’t anything nice like coal.
We were a little over a week away from Christmas, and I had finally concluded that it just wasn’t happening. Luke was going to be sad, but hopefully, the few other things that I had been able to get would ease his disappointment.
That was one of the reasons that I didn’t want to come tonight. I didn’t want Luke to sit on Santa’s lap or to mail his Dear Santa letter, and I sure as hell did not want to send the one that Luke had forced me to write. Yes, my five-year-old had forced me to write a letter to Santa, too.
My request was short and sweet, and I knew that when one of the Depot workers opened it, it would get tossed into the yeah-that’s-never-gonna-happen pile. I knew they had a pile like that firsthand. When I was eighteen, I had volunteered here during winter break, and I had been the lucky person to put letters there.
There were five stacks that letters were sorted into. The first was for wishes to fulfill. The second was requests that couldpossiblybe fulfilled. The next two were desires that required a miracle and yearnings for love—that one was always big and sometimes X-rated. Then there was the yeah-that’s-never-gonna-happen pile. I had no doubt mine would get dropped into that one.
If they still did the same thing that they did sixteen years ago when I volunteered here, then the teenagers would snigger over the wishing for love, and the adults would sigh and shake their heads over the never-happening pile. It wasn’t because they were irritated with those wishes, but because they knew they couldn’t do anything about them. I had heard one person say that he hated that pile because it depressed him.
I had to agree with him. It was a depressing pile, but so was my wish this year. I couldn’t wait for the new year to ring in so I could forget this year even happened. Hell, I’d be happy to fast-forward another one if it would help heal my tired and sad soul.
Luke coughed and immediately captured my attention. “You alright?”
“Yeah, it’s just a little cough.”
A little cough for him usually meant that his asthma was going to kick up. I glanced around at the festive tree trimmings—all were from live trees. Luke had horrible allergies, and one of them was to trees—like almost every kind of tree. The poor kid had been on allergy medicine and received shots to combat those allergies for three years already, with no end in sight. I had hoped that when we moved back here to Merryland, that his allergies might have gotten a little better, but they hadn’t.
“Your chest isn’t tight, is it?” I squatted next to him as he shook his head, although his eyes told me something different. “Luke, is your chest bothering you? If it is, we should go.”
He grabbed my hand. “No, Mom! I want to see Santa. I’m okay. I’ll use my inhaler, and I’ll be okay.”
I pursed my lips and removed the inhaler from my purse. Luke had been using one for two years too, so when I pulled him off to the side, he snagged it out of my hand, turned his back on me, and used his device. His way of showing me that he was a big kid now.
When he finished, he practically threw the inhaler back at me and started to hustle away. “Come on, Mom! Let’s go find Santa!”
I shoved it into my purse and took a few strides to catch up to him. He coughed a few more times, but I knew that was because his lungs were breaking up what had been causing the problem. My nose twitched as we passed a shop that was a little heavy on the cinnamon.
I was acutely aware of scents these days because I was always on the watch for something that would set him off. Heavy spices, trees, grass, floral scents could easily cause a reaction. We’d been to the ER more times than I could count for breathing treatments. I’d even had to use an Epi-Pen on him twice to keep his airways open.
Another reason for us to get this over with quickly. If Luke’s lungs were aggravated five minutes after we arrived, what were they going to be like in thirty minutes? I didn’t want to imagine.
Luke and I bypassed the shops and food stands, although his eyes seemed to devour the sweet treats for sale in the displays. I had promised him hot chocolate, and I hoped the one store was still here. It had been the best hot chocolate I had ever had, and I could not wait to taste it again.
At the back of the little shopping village—that went deck-the-halls-crazy this time of the year—was Santa’s court. We were lucky, it was still early, and there were only three people in front of us. With luck, Luke could tell him what he wanted, and we could grab our hot cocoa and be back in the car in twenty minutes.
“Mom, do you have our Dear Santa letters?” Luke asked as he tugged my hand closer to the line.
“Yes, I do. I just need to find the box for them.” I dug around in my purse and removed the two envelopes. Mine was lavender, and Luke had added a bunch of Mighty Mark stickers to it. He said the more stickers, the more important it looked. His letter was also covered in similar stickers, although he had opted for a blue envelope.
As we eased our way to the line, I saw the mailbox on the opposite side. After Luke sat on Santa’s lap, we could drop the letters and be on our way. While we waited, I searched for the shop that had the cocoa that I wanted. I could have sworn it was on the left side, just a couple doors down, but I couldn’t see it.
