So I cheered the fuck up.
Connor got a part in the school nativity play. He had two lines, so it didn’t matter that he’d joined the cast at short notice. He rocked the part of Shepherd No. 2, and both Rose and I cried a little when he took a bow at the end of the performance, grinning from ear to ear. I’d never seen him smile. Not like that. Not like he was a normal, trouble-free seven-year-old, playing with his friends, looking forward to Christmas.
Another week.
Jerry, the boatman, decided to sail back to the mainland early and didn’t tell anyone he wouldn’t be coming back until the day after Christmas, so the inhabitants of The Causeway were scrambling through the few small grocery stores that remained open on the island, trying to find last minute presents for each other along with ingredients for their holiday dinners.
Then, Christmas morning. I woke to hear Amie running up and down the hallway outside my room, squealing at the top of her lungs, followed by her brother, who was also yelling and laughing. They burst into my room, giggling like maniacs, half dressed, hair all over the place, both wearing toothy grins and extra cheeky dimples.
Hurtling themselves at my bed, they jumped up on top of me and proceeded to flail and bounce around, hollering at the top of their lungs. “Snow! Snow! Snow!” Amie dropped to her knees, landing right on top of me. “Get up, Feelya. There’s so much snow outside. We need to go play in it.”
Sure enough, when I allowed them to drag me, groggy and in sore need of caffeine, to the window, the entire view out of the glass was pure white for as far as the eye could see. There must have been a huge storm in the night, and we’d all slept through it.
“Can we?” Connor said, looking hopeful. “We’re not even hungry. We don’t need breakfast.”
“I don’t know about skipping breakfast,” I said, yawning. “But we can definitely go outside and build a snowman first. How about that?”
They screamed in response. Outside, the world felt fresh and new. It felt like it was holding its breath. Like it was keeping a secret. The huge lawn to the front of the house was a pristine white blanket. Connor and Amie, in pink and green rubber boots, charged at it like wild animals, racing each other, running in circles, pushing each other over, making snow angels on their backs. They dragged me down with them, and I created the most lopsided, shapeless snow angel, which made them both laugh. The three of us lay on our backs in the snow, panting, trying to catch our breath, staring up at the sky, and Connor reached out and took my hand. I’d never forget it. The small, usually unremarkable gesture that had me so close to tears. I squeezed his hand and he pulled away, but he smiled at me as he raced off, whooping and shouting so loud that his voice echoed way off in the distance.
When the cold set in and the glory of charging around in the snow was no longer enough to distract the children from the lure of the presents waiting for them under the Christmas tree, we headed back to the house. On the doorstep, sitting there, stacked one on top of the other, were three presents all wrapped in matching brown paper.
“Look!” Amie ran up the steps and picked up the first present, shaking it in her mittened hand. “Santa brought us extras presents!” She held it up to show me.
“That one’s got an O on it.” Connor took the present—long and narrow—from her, studying the small gift card that was taped to the top of it. “It doesn’t say anything else. I think it’s for you.” He handed the gift to me, and then picked up the one underneath. “This one has a A on it. And this one has a C.” Picking up the largest, bulkiest present from the floor, Connor gave it to his sister, who had to hold it with two hands.
“Whoa! It’s heavy! Where did they come from?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I think Santa maybe did just forget to drop these off in the night, so he left them here where he knew we would find them.” The presents weren’t there when we came outside earlier, I was sure of it. I spun around, scanning the sprawling lawn and the sweeping driveway that stretched on and on for at least a mile back to the main road, and there, in the distance, I saw him—a tall figure dressed in black, so far off he was barely more than a half a centimeter tall, walking away from the house. Black pants. Black jacket. A black hat, or maybe just very, very dark hair. Plumes of smoke rose up on the figure’s breath, clouding overhead as he grew smaller and smaller, until I couldn’t make him out anymore.