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“You do?”
“Yep. Dollar General.”
“No shit.”
“Last I heard.”
“Last youheard?”
“You’re not the only one looking.”
I tried to process this. “Holy fuck. It’s been Currently Unavailable on Amazon since September.”
“Don’t say I never did anything for you.” He grinned, and suddenly I couldn’t even hear the vigorous ringing of the Salvation Army bell. I could only focus on that grin. He’d done a lot for me when we were together. With his mouth, his hands, and, one time, Linda’s shiatsu massager. But this went above and beyond. I owed him coffee at least.
“I’d love to grab coffee,” I said. “Sometime, I mean.”
“Awesome. How’s tomorrow?”
“I work. But Sunday should be fine. I’ll ask my mom if she can take the girls for a couple of hours.”
“Great.” He actually sounded like he thought it was great.
We exchanged numbers, and I was about to get in my car when he said, “Fran?”
“Yeah?”
“This might be totally weird to suggest, but I’ve actually been moonlighting as Santa over at Elfwood.”
“Katya’sElfwood?”
“Yeah, one of her regular Santas had to go to rehab, so I stepped in.” He paused. “I’ve got the outfit and everything. If you need someone to stop by your house Christmas Eve and eat cookies with your girls, I can probably arrange that.”
I stared until I made it weird, then said, “That would be amazing. If you seriously don’t mind.”
“I seriously don’t. We can hammer out details on Sunday.”
“Yeah. Wow, thanks. Like, really.”
“Yeah, no problem, man.”
Man? Was that really where we were now?
“Sunday, then,” I said.
“Looking forward to it.”
Then he climbed into his car, and the engine sputtered to life. I watched him pull out of the Save-Rite parking lot. Stood there for several long seconds after he was gone, the Salvation Army bell jangling behind me, my hands numb with cold.
And then I smiled. Made myself stop smiling. Smiled again, very much in spite of myself. Shook my head and got in my own car. Made it to the stop sign before I realized the trunk was still open.
Got out, waved to some very annoyed drivers, closed my trunk, then got back in and drove away.
ChapterTwo
Ada and Em began waving the moment they saw my car, Ada in her purple coat, Em in green. I waved enthusiastically back, then had to suddenly grip the wheel and slam the brakes to avoid hitting a little boy and his mother who were crossing the school’s circular drive. I pulled in front of the building and got out, and the bus duty teacher nodded at the girls, who bolted toward me. My heart swelled every time I saw them. Literally every time. Whether I’d been away from them eight hours or fifteen seconds, I always got that rush of love, more intense than anything else I’d experienced in my life.
In all my years of adulthood, I’d only ever known two things for certain: One was that I would go into medicine to please my absent father. And the other was that I would be a father myself. Not an absent one. A really, really good one. And let’s be clear, there were some things I hated about myself as a person and as a parent. But I was fairly confident I was as good a father as I could be. I knew my girls loved me, and I loved them with a force that seemed like it should have knocked the entire earth from its orbit.
