Cara Colter

by Their Christmas Wish Come True

  Of all the special moments of that night, Michael thought maybe he would remember that one the most—gratitude and dignity, mixed, a feeling of being one with another person.

  The young man mouthed words. Thank you.

  And Michael knew that somehow, he, too, had become worthy of carrying the spirit of Santa within him.

  Finally the sleigh was back in front of the Secret Santa Society office, the volunteers, elves, even Santa, strangely quiet, contemplative, in that rare place of people who had been allowed the grave honor of being a part of something bigger than themselves.

  Lulu took the microphone one last time. “Oh, wait. Santa has a few things left in his sack.”

  In a way this was Michael’s moment. The moment he had been making secret lists for, the mission that had returned his heart to him.

  And yet he could not stay for it. It wasn’t about him, after all. To take credit for the work of Santa would have spoiled it all.

  Michael walked away before she gave out those items, the Secret Santa gifts for each of the volunteers.

  He walked away because his heart felt so big it hurt.

  And because he had at least fourteen hours of work to do before tomorrow morning and only ten hours to do it in.

  Because in each of those parcels they’d delivered tonight, had been an invitation to come to the Christmas Day unveiling of a surprise for the whole neighborhood.

  Final coats of paint, furniture to be taken out of boxes and wrappers, last minute donations of books to be put on shelves, tiles to be grouted, Japanese oranges to be heaped in bowls.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

  Lulu had left the mike on.

  “Lord have Mercy,” she screamed, “I’m gonna go get my feet pedicured in Air-ee-zona! And if I ain’t going there in designer shoes!”

  Kirsten watched as each of the volunteers accepted their gifts, was as stunned as anyone by the generosity and grandeur of those gifts.

  Even her sister’s name was called, and Grant’s.

  Grant had made a remarkable adjustment to being in a wheelchair. Earlier today, Becky had seen Kirsten watching him and said, “You have to let go of your fantasy of who you thought he should be and see what he is, a kid with enormous heart and enormous spirit who would never let something like losing the use of his legs defeat him. He may have found that spirit if the accident had never happened. Or maybe not. You have to trust everything has a reason.”

  For four years now, Kirsten had focused on what wasn’t, instead of what was. She had longed for happily-ever-after. But had it made her miss opportunities to be happy right now?

  And trust? Everyone else had moved on. Everyone else had managed to accept life as it was, instead of as they wanted it to be.

  Her sister was happy. Grant was happy. Everyone had chosen happiness, except her.

  She was drawn back to the moment as Lulu called Grant’s name, and passed her a basketball to give to him.

  “Signed by some of the team,” Lulu pointed out with approval.

  But as Kirsten handed her nephew the basketball, something inside her froze. How could Grant and her sister be getting gifts? Who, aside from her, had even known they were coming? And who would have known about the interest in basketball? She hadn’t even known that!

  But suddenly, even as her own name was called, she knew who it was. She looked around for him, needing to see him, needing to see his eyes, and connect with them, needing to know he was real .

  And needing him to know her final truth: she trusted him with her heart.

  But like Santa, he had left his gifts and disappeared.

  She took the parcel Lulu handed to her, and stared at it. Tonight, Michael Brewster had said the most incredible words to her.

  He had said I love you . Whatever was in this beautifully wrapped parcel would tell her if it was true or not.

  “Open it!” her volunteers called. They began to chant and clap. Kirsten opened the package with shaking hands.

  Impossibly she was looking at the very distinctive box of a Little in Love collectible. Not just any Little in Love collectible, either.

  How could he have managed this? She wasn’t a Special Collector. Michael Brewster certainly wasn’t a Special Collector. How had he managed to find her Knight in Shining Armor ? It had sold out ten hours after it was issued.

  And how is it when she was holding the item she had coveted the most, she felt a little worm of disappointment in her heart? What had she wanted from him? It was a beautiful gift, a gift that said he was willing to accept her even if her tastes ran contrary to his.

  But the thing was, he had never accepted this part of her. It had always felt as if Michael saw more, expected more, made her become more. He had never accepted the comfortable smoke screens she hid behind. He had never seemed to see them at all. He’d seen right past them, to who she really was, to who she wanted to be.

  Everyone was oohhing and aahing over her gift, knowing what A Little in Love had meant to her.

  She tried to smile though the truth was her disappointment was so huge it felt as if she was going to burst into tears.

  What right did she have to judge when the gift she’d gotten him didn’t feel as if it began to say what she was feeling, either? She’d gotten him dance lessons, and at the last minute an MP3 player specially loaded with songs she’d selected. She’d gotten him fudge, and in a move so daring it made her blush thinking about it, she’d gotten him Christmas underwear that said, Oh, Oh, Oh, on it, instead of Ho, Ho, Ho.

  Her sister came up beside her, looked at Kirsten’s gift and made no effort to disguise her disgust.

  “Good grief, Kirsten,” Becky said, “Have I ever told you how much I hate those things?”

  “You hate Little in Love ?” Kirsten asked, shocked.

  “You can’t see why?”

  Kirsten looked at the picture on the box she held. Of two people who loved each other blissfully, innocently. What was to hate about that?

  Her sister shook her head. “Smedley looks exactly like Kent.”

  Kirsten stared at the picture on the box, stunned. How on earth had she managed to miss that? And yet nothing could be truer. Smedley did look like Kent.

  With trembling fingers she opened the box, and carefully tugged the figurine from its specially made bed of foam and bubble wrap.

  Kent in the form of Smedley stared her in the face. She slid a look to her sister, who was throwing the basketball to Grant.

  The only one who was holding out hope that she would get back with Kent was Kirsten. The hope died in her. It was over. They were never getting back together.

  “Hey, Mom, catch.” Grant let loose the ball, but the throw went wild.

  Becky leaned to catch it, and lost her footing. She screamed, trying to warn her, but Kirsten looked up a fraction of a second too late. Her sister crashed into her full force.

  Later, when she looked back at it, it seemed to her when her sister fell into her, she could have held on to Harriet and Smedley much, much tighter.

  But she chose to let go.

  She chose to save herself instead. The figurine flew out of her hands, popped up in the air, eluded Mr. Temple’s wild grab for it, and crashed to the ground.

  The sound of splintering bisque porcelain was surprisingly loud in the sudden silence.

  Kirsten stared down at the shattered glass. She became aware everyone was watching her. Grant looked like he was going to start crying.

  But Kirsten got it, entirely.

  The fantasy was done, shattered beyond repair. Right now, standing there, looking at that broken piece of glass, Kirsten was aware she had a choice to make. This could be her worst Christmas ever, knowing that her sister was moving on, knowing that things shattered unexpectedly and without warning, and could not be repaired.

  Or it could be her best Christmas ever. She had a choice to make about how she intended to live.

  The fantasy was gone, and rather than being
sad, she decided to be glad. She could not remember one moment in the past four years when she had felt like this: free.

  Free. Light. Ready.

  To accept reality, which was about a man who hated dressing up, and fell asleep on the back of the sleigh, and disappeared when it could have been his moment to shine, his moment to lap up glory and gratitude.

  Reality was a man who looked equally happy to see her dressed up as a princess, or as an elf. Reality was a man who delighted in making her turn the exact same shade as a fallharvested beet.

  Reality was a man whose eyes could turn her insides to jelly, whose hands lit fires within her, whose lips made her want to find out what it was to be a woman. Not a princess, but a 100 percent flesh and blood woman.

  A woman every bit as real as he was. She recognized the saddest truth about herself: for the past four years she had been afraid of love, and equally afraid of not being loved. Smedley had been something safe for her to love.

  Michael had seen right through those things, before she had even seen through them herself. He had made her long to find her courage so that she could love someone real.

  You could look so hard for your knight in shining armor that you could miss what had been put right in front of you.

  The lightness filled her. As she let go of her fantasy, she remembered the faces of each of the children she had handed a gift to tonight.

  And allowed herself to feel—as she had not felt in four years—all their joy and all their pain, all their hopes and all their dreams.

  Kirsten began to laugh, and as the clock struck midnight, Washington Street greeted Christmas with the sound of laughter—the hope and joy of helping others—rising above all other things.

  “Can you find your own way back to the hotel?” Kirsten asked her sister. “I have to find Michael.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Christmas Day…12:10 a.m.

  THE door squeaked open, and Michael looked up. Lulu waltzed in, grabbed him and nearly crushed him in her hug.

  “You should have stayed,” she admonished him. “People figured out it was you. They just wanted to thank you.”

  “They can thank me tomorrow.” Casually he added, “Did Kirsten like her present?”

  “It got broke.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, her nephew was fooling around with a basketball. His mom tried to catch it and crashed into her. It got broken.” Lulu passed him the box. “I picked up the pieces. Just in case you bought it with your credit card. Sometimes they’ll replace things.”

  “How did Kirsten react?” He took the box, knew he was never having this replaced.

  “She laughed.”

  Despite the fact that stupid figurine had been practically paid for in blood, Michael felt a sigh within himself. She had laughed at the smashing of Smedley. He bet when he was ninety, she would still be surprising him.

  “Hey,” he called to a boy who came in the door, a wizard with murals, “do you think you could paint this on the wall? The picture on this box?”

  The kid was thrilled to have more to do.

  As he began his task another young man, Malcolm, slipped in the door. “Got something for me to do, boss?” he asked.

  Michael could ask a lot of himself, but he didn’t hold everyone to the same standard. He had no one to go home to. Most of these guys did.

  “It’s Christmas Eve, go home and be with your family.”

  “Christmas,” Malcolm corrected him. “It’s been Christmas for like fifteen minutes.” Then he grinned. “You are my family now.”

  The door opened again.

  “Barney,” he said sternly, “your mother wants you at midnight mass.”

  But Barney shook his head, stubbornly. “I’m finishing what I started.”

  Lulu kissed him right on the mouth. “I always wanted to kiss Santa,” she said, “Now point me at the cleaning supplies, and I’ll get at these windows.”

  The door opened again and again, and again, his “crew”—no, his family—coming to be with him.

  “There’s probably better things to be doing Christmas morning than grouting tile,” he said, but not one of them moved. “Okay, but let’s hope we’re not starting a new Christmas tra dition. Gather around guys and gals. Grouting 101.”

  Christmas Day 1:00 a.m.

  In the distance Kirsten heard a church bell ringing, midnight mass ending. Where was Michael? How could she have let him disappear?

  She had been making this all about her. Her family was here because of Michael. Even the Christmas present, and her disappointment that it had fallen so far from the mark about how she wanted to feel, had been about her. Somehow, because she loved him, Michael was supposed to make her feel good and secure and loved? And what had she done for him?

  He, who had made Christmas magic for every single volunteer at the Secret Santa Society. Who had brought her sister and Grant here.

  How had she thanked him? She’d left him alone!

  It was his first Christmas by himself, and she had been so involved in herself she hadn’t even thought how that must feel for him.

  She realized that that was one of the things she was going to love about being in love. People might think she was unselfish, because of the work she did, but she was the most selfcentered person of all. Everything was always about how she felt, even making sure she got presents to those kids. It made her feel in control, as if she could prevent tragedies like the one that had taken Grant’s ability to walk.

  She wanted respite from it. She was ready to grow beyond it. That’s what love did: it required her to be so much more than she ever had been before.

  She didn’t know exactly where Michael’s house was, but she did know where Mr. Theodore lived, because book club rotated through all the members’ houses. Michael had said they were neighbors.

  She drove there at the speed of light. Mr. Theodore’s house was lit up in a display that would have put the Fourth of July to shame.

  All the houses on the street were lit up.

  Save for one. No lights. Dark. Very sad looking. She would have known it was Michael’s house even if there wasn’t a sign on the gate that said Brewster.

  He’d given everyone else including her everything they dreamed of for Christmas, and she’d allowed him to come home, alone, to this.

  She took a deep breath, tried to pull her elf costume a little farther down her thigh, and went and knocked on the door. No answer. She rang the bell. Still no answer. She stood on tiptoe and looked in the window high up the door. “Michael!” she called.

  “Kirsten?” She nearly jumped out of her skin. “Oh, Mr. Theodore, what are you doing out here? It’s the middle of the night.” The old man was standing on the walkway behind her. He was holding a bundle of something. Surely not a baby?

  “I was just about to ask you the same thing. Michael’s not here. He hasn’t come home yet. He parks right out front.”

  Disappointment stabbed at her, but even as it did she discovered something else she loved about love.

  Two months ago if she had come to a man’s house in the middle of the night and he wasn’t home, she would have thought of Kent, and she would have believed the worst. But Michael had leaned close to her tonight and told her he loved her. And he hadn’t been kidding, even if he had called her a frog. He’d worn an elf suit for her, and if that wasn’t love, nothing was!

  She had decided tonight that was the gift she was giving herself: she was trusting again.

  “Do you know where Michael might be?” she asked. “I’m worried. His first Christmas without them. I don’t want him to be alone.”

  “I think this would be the hardest place for him to come tonight,” Mr. Theodore said. “They always had a big party on Christmas Eve. His mother loved Christmas. She was a wonderful woman.”

  “She had to be to raise a man like him,” Kirsten said.

  “Ah,” Mr. Theodore said, watching her with satisfaction. “Eileen would have had this place lookin
g different. We used to compete good-naturedly to see who could put out the best display. I don’t even think Michael has a tree.”

  Kirsten moved from the door, put her hand to the window to peer in.

  Mr. Theodore was right. There was no tree. Not a single Christmas decoration. In fact, she was looking at just about the loneliest room she had ever seen. A big armchair and a huge TV set appeared to be the only furnishings in his living room.