Christmas, Actually. Anna J. Stewart
me that on the phone.”
She sipped the cider. It still burned her lips. “I said ‘tell you.’ I’m doing this, and you can live with it.”
“Don’t encourage her to dream up comforting stories about me,” Jack said, standing. “You’ll only make sure she’ll be hurt.”
Sophie tried to equate this guy with the loving, witty man she used to know.
Bringing her a pot of purple violets on a Tuesday evening just because he thought the color would look nice with her eyes. That pot still held pride of place on her nightstand.
“I don’t know how you can leave your own baby.” She went to the door and opened it for him.
“I’ve already spoken to an attorney about child support. I’ll be setting up the payroll deduction as soon as you deliver.”
“What a good idea. Once it’s set up, you won’t have to think about your daughter ever again.”
Despite her anger, she only wanted to know one thing. Why?
The question echoed inside her head. She heard it, but she must be holding it back. He didn’t even blink. He just walked away. Again.
She slammed the door so hard the whole house must have shivered. Nice pregnant women didn’t run at implacable men and pound their fists on feelingless backs. Nor did they break Esther Underbrook’s house.
Sophie bit her fist to keep from crying. As soon as her car was repaired, she’d get out of Christmas Town.
* * *
“ESTHER, I NEED to buy a new coat.” The next morning, Sophie had gone downstairs to breakfast, nibbled on a slice of toast and decided she’d walk off her frustration. No need to lurk around the B and B, whiling away the hours before her car was repaired. “Mine didn’t survive the accident.”
Esther refilled Sophie’s herbal tea. “There’s Dockery’s. Go around the courthouse and follow the green, where they’re starting to put up the decorations. You won’t be able to miss it. Dockery’s doesn’t put up their Santa until after Thanksgiving, but he’s been waving from the top of their pediment for a week now.”
Sophie’s hard heart softened. Maybe she could use a little Santa after last night’s dose of rejection. “Is the distance walkable?”
Esther looked over Sophie’s thick sweater and purple knitted cloche, mittens and scarf. “Maybe on the way back. I’m going to call you a cab for the drive over. ” She motioned for Sophie to follow her to the reception desk, where she shuffled among the pages for a map of downtown, and then drew in directions for walking back from Dockery’s. “Now you be careful. The sidewalks might be icy.”
The cab arrived in no time, and Sophie rode in the backseat, staring out the windows at the lighted snowflakes blinking on street lamps and the people attaching holly to a white picket fence around the long town green.
At Dockery’s, a tall Victorian brick department store that oozed decorum, Sophie hopped out. She was drawn to the Norman Rockwell–type window displays. The first showed a family around a tree decorated in rich reds and greens and the other, a family around the fireplace, popping corn to string on their still bare tree.
Sophie couldn’t just walk past. She ran her hand over her belly, promising her daughter she wouldn’t lack for love because she didn’t have a father. Sophie’s mother had probably made the same Christmas wish, and that hadn’t come true. Every child wanted to be wanted by her parents.
On the store’s third floor, Sophie rummaged through the racks until she found a coat she liked. While she was paying for it, she breathed in the fragrance of a fir tree tucked into the corner of the checkout desk.
“You hardly ever see real ones anymore,” she said to the woman running her credit card.
“Fire hazard, I guess, but we got special permission to use one on each floor for our elf trees.”
“Elf trees?” Sophie noticed the small white tags hanging from the branches.
“The children whose parents can’t afford much this Christmas were asked to fill out a card with their wishes.” She handed Sophie her receipt and pointed at the tree with her pen. “Each one of those cards is a wish.”
“If I buy something now, can I turn it in before I leave the store?”
“The collection boxes are supposed to show up sometime today, one at all the exits, but if you don’t find a box before you leave the store, bring your gift back to me, or drop it at Customer Service.”
“Thanks.” Sophie took a tag that said “Red coat with black buttons” in a childish scrawl. Someone had written on the corner of the tag that this was for a girl, size 4T, and jotted a code, which must identify the child.
Sophie remembered being annoyed with clothing when she was small. She’d wanted toys—a treasure trove of toys, stacked like a pyramid around the tree.
A bit embarrassed, she smiled at the cashier and headed for the escalator, where a sign directed her to the children’s section, on the second floor. She found a beautiful wool coat, cinched in at the waist, with a swirling skirt and a black collar to match the required black buttons. She added mittens and a scarf, in red with black trim.
In the toy department, she found a doll in a similar coat and jaunty hat. She picked up a notepad and crayons and a toy cell phone, a miniature pewter tea set and Lincoln Logs, which she would still play with herself if she had them.
There were no collection boxes on the ground floor, so she headed to Customer Service, where a man behind the desk eyed her pile of gifts with doubt. “You picked up a lot of tags,” he said.
“Just one. Can I get these wrapped?” Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was her own grief. But one little girl, size 4T, who was so mature she’d asked for a coat instead of toys, was going to receive a mini pyramid.
“Sure.” He leaned over the counter, pointing to the right. “Just around that corner.”
“Thank you.”
She persuaded the resident wrapper to do each item and then put them all in a bigger box, which she also wrapped in gorgeous red metallic paper that glittered each time the box moved. Sophie chose a white taffeta ribbon, and the woman performed a miracle of looping with it. The finished gift was so beautiful Sophie was tempted to believe in Christmas again. She meant to leave it at Customer Service, but the man behind the counter had disappeared, and she hated to leave the package just sitting there.
Maybe the collection boxes had shown up by now.
She was just in time. The store security guard was pulling a box covered in Santa-figured wrapping paper toward the revolving doors. Sophie carried her package to him, peering over the top to make sure she didn’t mow anyone down. “Will this fit?” she asked as the guard held out his hands.
“I think so. Good thing you got here first, though.”
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but could you make sure the bow doesn’t get crushed?”
“No problem. I’ll arrange it myself, and we empty the box every night at closing.”
Together, they set it inside.
“That was some wish,” the guard said. “What was it? A horse?”
Sophie laughed. “Just a coat.”
“In Kevlar?” He glanced up as the door behind her opened, and a familiar voice called out a greeting. “Jack, your first wish came true.”
Sophie whirled. “You’re collecting toys for children?” she asked. The irony tasted bitter and felt like poison.
Jack barely even blinked. “It’s a family tradition.”
“It’s a Banning trait,” the guard said. “I saw your brother, Nick, splicing